Seanad debates

Wednesday, 20 November 2019

Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Lynn RuaneLynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 17:

In page 7, to delete lines 36 to 41, and in page 6, to delete lines 1 to 5 and substitute the following:
“and
(b) by deleting subsections (3) and (5).”.

The amendment is one of the most important changes I propose to the Bill. It will remove the limit on the number of convictions that can become spent. The single-conviction rule of the current law received significant criticism at the justice committee as a major barrier to access to spent convictions and as an interference with the right to privacy under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was acknowledged it was a disproportionate limit on the rehabilitative potential law and that it needed reform. My Bill, as initiated, proposed increasing the limit to two convictions for adults and three convictions for young adults. In recommendation 4 of its report on spent convictions, however, the justice committee called for the removal of the limit altogether, citing the support of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for the change.

I, therefore, propose the amendment to enact the change. If we do not remove the limit, we will not be able to cater for those with clusters of offences. Even if they took place decades earlier, they would never have an opportunity to become spent, irrespective of how minor they were. If a person is on track to have his or her convictions spent, he or she must not offend for a significant period. All indicators show that the length of the period without reoffending is the best indicator of someone's propensity to commit crime. This should be the standard by which we allow someone to avail of a spent conviction, rather than an arbitrary restriction on the number that can become spent.

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