New law will disregard abolished homosexual offences

The Department of Justice today announced a change to the law which will allow convictions for abolished homosexual offences to be disregarded and pardoned.

The new law, agreed by the Assembly in November 2016, facilitates the removal of convictions for such offences from police and court records.

Convictions that are disregarded will be considered as never having happened and will no longer appear on criminal records or in any criminal record checks.

It also means that there is no requirement to disclose the abolished offence, for example on job application forms or in court cases.

To have historic convictions disregarded, an application must be made to the Department of Justice.

If an application is successful the person is also, by law, pardoned for the offence.

Anyone who was convicted of an abolished homosexual offence and who has since died is also, by law, pardoned for the offence.

The provisions ensure that only offences which are no longer an offence today, and which involved consensual activity with someone over the age of 17, are eligible to be disregarded or pardoned.

Further details on applying for a conviction to be disregarded can be found at www.nidirect.gov.uk/pardons-and-disregards

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Posted by Newry Times News on Jun 28 2018. Filed under Community, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry