Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016

Certain convictions are not required to be disclosed

21. The Act of 2012 is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 14:

“14A. (1) This section applies to a conviction by the District Court of a person in respect of an offence where the following conditions are met in respect of the conviction:

(a) the person to whom the conviction relates shall be a natural person and shall have attained the age of 18 years at the date of the commission of the offence which is the subject of the conviction concerned;

(b) the offence shall not be an excluded offence;

(c) not less than 7 years has passed since the effective date of conviction;

(d) the person shall have served or otherwise undergone or complied with any sentence imposed, or order made by the court in dealing with the person in respect of the conviction concerned.

(2) Subject to subsection (4), this section shall apply in respect of one single conviction only and where a person has more than one conviction this section shall not apply to that person.

(3) Where in any proceedings before a court, a person is convicted of 2 or more offences which are committed simultaneously or arise from the same incident, and the court in passing sentence, imposes more than one sentence in respect of those offences, the convictions imposed shall be regarded as one single conviction.

(4) Subsection (2) shall not apply to a conviction imposed on a person in respect of an offence—

(a) under the Road Traffic Acts 1961 to 2014, other than section 53 (2) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 ,

(b) under section 37A of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1988 ,

(c) under section 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 8A(4) or 9 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 .

(5) In this section—

‘effective date of conviction’ means, in relation to the imposition by the District Court of a sentence for an offence, the date on which the sentence becomes operative in accordance with the order of the court;

‘excluded offence’ means—

(a) an offence specified in Schedule 3, or

(b) an offence specified in Part 1 or 2 of Schedule 1 of the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016.

(6) For the purposes of this section a criminal conviction of a person by the District Court—

(a) which is appealed by the person to the Circuit Court, and

(b) is affirmed or varied by the Circuit Court,

shall, as so affirmed or varied by the Circuit Court be treated as if it were a conviction of the District Court.”.