Pubdate: Sat, 24 Feb 2001
Source: Evening Post (New Zealand)
Copyright: Wellington Newspapers (2001) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.evpost.co.nz/

REWRITING HISTORY

Prolonged cannabis use has been associated with memory loss, a link 
that perhaps goes part of the way towards explaining Green MP Nandor 
Tanczos' promotion of a Bill to wipe out minor convictions, writes 
The Evening Post in an editorial.

Mr Tanczos last week had his Clean Slate Bill selected from the 
ballot of members' Bills at Parliament and would appear to have 
sufficient initial support to at least get it to a select committee.

The aim of the Bill is to remove from people's criminal records their 
convictions for minor offences seven years after they occurred. Mr 
Tanczos says the Bill will not apply to "serious offences", only to 
those where the sentence is less than six months jail. He lists 
non-payment of fines, driving offences, possession of cannabis and 
shoplifting among these. Anyone who has ever sat in a District Court 
and watched judges bend over backwards to try to avoid sentences of 
imprisonment will know it will apply to other crimes as well. Mr 
Tanczos says the Bill is about helping people who have "truly 
rehabilitated" to overcome their past.

It's not clear why he assumes that after a period of seven years 
anyone is "truly rehabilitated". The Bill makes no reference to 
someone convicted of a driving offence having to undertake so much as 
a defensive driving course. A shoplifter may simply have become more 
skilled at thieving through years of practice since the last 
conviction. Those convicted may not even regret the misdemeanour that 
earned them a conviction in the first place. Some, like 
anti-Springbok tour protesters, wear their convictions with pride. 
Strip them away and the highlight of their careers in civil 
resistance will be diminished.

The Bill will doubtless provoke impassioned debate. Already ACT NZ is 
promising vigorous opposition, saying the right to forgive and forget 
belongs to ordinary New Zealanders, not the State. The Bill proposes 
a form of revisionism. And like no-fault accident compensation, it 
represents another step in eroding the concept of individual 
responsibility.

There are people who carry convictions they enormously regret. For 
them, the conviction itself is often the most significant part of the 
punishment. But that is the price of a person's misdemeanour and 
their challenge is to rise above it and prove the action that 
incurred it was an aberration. The stigma of a conviction is what 
holds many law-abiding people back from succumbing to the temptation 
of committing an offence. By diminishing the weight of a conviction, 
Parliament would undermine a well-understood precept of our justice 
system.

There is little evidence that old and minor convictions remotely 
interfere with people living their lives. For those who carry a 
conviction as a dark secret, it stays that way and if many people 
knew, they probably wouldn't care anyway. Mr Tanczos says the Bill 
will provide an incentive not to re-offend. There already is an 
incentive not to re-offend - you don't want a second conviction.
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