PROPOSALS to amend the existing criminal record system have been suggested by the Justice Ministry in an effort to facilitate minor offenders seeking employment in posts requiring a clean police record.
The proposal was discussed at the House Legal Affairs committee on Thursday and, if approved, will relieve Cypriots and foreigners living on the island for longer than six months from the stigma associated with petty misdemeanors.
The bill proposes that first time offenders sentenced to fines of up to £1,000 or jail terms of less than three months not be issued criminal records by the police Criminal Record Office (CRO).
Suggestions were also put forward for a list of 11 crimes which would carry a mandatory criminal records, irrespective of sentence. These are public order offenses, murder and attempted murder, manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, moral offenses, robbery and attempted robbery, breaking and entering, theft, arson and attempted arson, drugs law violations, possession and use of explosions excluding cartridges, and the import/possession/transportation/use of a forbidden weapon.
A CRO official told the Cyprus Mail that government jobs often required clean criminal records as did many universities abroad, banks, security jobs, and professionally-licensed jobs such as lorry drivers.
“Jobs that require employees to handle large sums of money usually want their staff to hold clean criminal records. However, there have been times when people find it difficult to get a job because of the way the law stands today,” he said.
The current law states that adults who are fined up to £1,000 or imprisoned for up to six months only have their record wiped clean after five years. A petty offence could therefore thwart a 20-year-old from getting a job, even though the offence had been a one-off committed when he was 18 and he had kept a clean record since.
“On the other hand, if a man were to get only six months for a rape conviction – which would never happen – he would, according to the existing law, no longer have a criminal record after five years,” he said.
The present law also states that sentences between six months and a year stay on record for seven years, while sentences of one to two years in jail are only wiped after nine years, he said.
Sentences of two to four years in jail are dealt with differently.
“If someone is sentenced for this length of time, after 12 years they are allowed to file a request with their district court to have their record wiped clean. It is the up to the court to decide,” he said.
But any sentence involving more than four years in jail means a lifelong criminal record. “These people will have a criminal record for the rest of their lives.”
No one was yesterday available for comment at the Attorney-general’s office.
