Minor drug offences can now be expunged, Minister
The legislation was to “minimise the legacy effects of discriminatory, racialised and unjust criminal sanctions which continue to hamper those formerly convicted persons from gaining equal treatment”
Saturday, March 13, 2021
People convicted of minor drug offences can have their convictions expunged, the Attorney-General said. But Kathy Lynn Simmons warned that offenders who had their convictions erased may still be blocked from entering the US. The expungement laws passed last year were now in force. An expungement order would erase criminal conviction records for the offence of simple possession of cannabis of seven grams or less, for offences committed before December 20, 2017, when possession of that amount was decriminalised. “By allowing expungement of criminal records … the Government has ensured that persons formerly convicted are not excluded from the social justice reforms that are being instituted."