What it Means to Have No Conviction Application in Australia?

Introduction

If you are on the fence about conviction vs. non-conviction or how it can affect a visa application, this article may be worth your time. Conviction and no conviction in Australia, NSW, etc. even for seemingly harmless things are undesirable. Because things like “speeding fines” or “drunk and disorderly” can pose a major challenge during the processing of visa applications.

Offenses that are common in adulthood might still be accountable. So, knowing more is always useful. And, we take a couple of minutes to see what Australian laws and regulations mean for you.

Looking Past Common Offences

Sometimes offenses that are very common during adulthood or significantly old, say 20 years old, might come up as a hindrance. Yes, these are only obstructions for ordinary people but can affect them in great ways. With good legal teams, they are trivial things to worry about, but knowledge is still useful. The Migration Act of 1958 stipulates several such laws for the Australian continent, and if you have some plans for the future, you better practice safety.

Scrutinizing such old and common offenses in great detail is becoming a common method. And, during the processing of visa applications, you may even require to produce more elaborate explanations of these cases. And it holds even if it's 20 years later. Cases of no conviction QLD or any other place follows the same rules. And, receiving no conviction is desirable. So that when filling applications, your answer to “if you've even been convicted” is straight “No”. And that means no trouble or hassle.

A sentence without conviction is always a good thing. It means that whenever that person has to fill up any job application or visa application – they can confidently answer “No”. It means the person is an ideal law-abiding citizen. Because of this, authorities demand “no conviction” status, because this is the only way to use the history of a person to assess their conduct and personality.

But, do all convictions are equally harmful? Let us see you soon.

Guilty Without Conviction

Receiving a sentence from a court involving a non-conviction goes on the record. And because of this, your name is officially on all government online registers and databases. This can come up during any official inquiry and scrutiny such as during job applications. If you commit an offense as per law there are two possibilities.

Receiving a non-conviction sentence is the other side of the coin because whenever a case goes to a court, for your offense, you will definitely receive a sentence. Usually, a non-conviction is available only for very petty and small offenses that do not involve any serious damage. We just mentioned some of these examples right above that includes speeding, drunk-driving, etc. These are offenses on the lower end of the scale. They account for a non-conviction sentence. Further, because of no prior criminal history, offenders may receive a non-conviction sentence.

It means that the charge was correct, and the client pleads guilty but did not receive a conviction. This is a way to give them another chance to set records straight and have a spotless record. However, if they have previously been a convict it is unlikely or close to impossible to award a non-conviction. And, such cases pose serious challenges even for the wealthy.

Affecting Visa Applications – Good Character

Cases like minor theft or assault are very common and lower-end charges. Because of this, a person's police record might look relatively non-existent or harmless. But during the migration process in Australia, the Department of Immigration takes much care in recounting all these small and petty cases.

While clients look forward to a brighter and successful future, circumstances surrounding cases involving conviction can be detrimental. So, take care to satisfy the requirements of a “good character”. Though the legal definition of good character spans 33 pages and only officials would know them, non-conviction is unarguably a good thing. If you have no record of any offense, you don't have anything to worry about at all.

However, the strict and seemingly nonsensical way of processing applications did not happen overnight. A lot of factors lead to this procedure. One of them is the astounding number of applications in recent years. The rising population is a big factor in this dilemma.

Because of a record number of visa applications, citizenship applications stringent rules were necessary to limit the numbers. Thus, Australian authorities began using these petty cases too for rejecting applications. For example, there are even cases where a person was denied a good character certificate for a bad driving record during their teenage years. In one case a person was responsible for a crash while having a Learner's Driving License. And, surprisingly, that led to a refusal of the conduct certificate. In other words, such seemingly trivial affairs may also affect your case. It is not impossible and nothing is weird.

Records show that these character-based cases fall under review by the Federal Court of Australia itself. And over 60% of denied applications relate to decisions made under the “good character” criteria.

Conclusion

Examples like above are not exceptions, but a common mode of refusal. The consequences are severe if a person is found to “not be of a good character”. For instance, if the person applies for another Australian visa and such a case appears during the scrutiny, it automatically voids all current visas as well. No conviction is the best thing.