CANCELLATION OF POLICE AND CRIMINAL RECORDS

Criminal records are a series of data collected by the Ministry of Justice in the Central Registry of Punished and Rebels that refer to a person after he has been convicted of committing a certain crime on final judgement. Criminal records require the commission of a crime and an indictment.

All individuals convicted by a final judgment that have extinguished their criminal responsibility have the right to obtain, from the Ministry of Justice, the cancellation of their criminal records within the time limits established by the Law.

The Requirements necessary to cancel the criminal record required by the Law are:

a) To cancel the criminal record (art. 136 of the Criminal Code):

Not having committed a crime again during the following deadlines:

· Six months for minor penalties.

· Two years for penalties not exceeding twelve months and those imposed for reckless crimes.

· Three years for the remaining less serious penalties of less than three years.

· Five years for the remaining less serious penalties equal to or greater than three years.

· Ten years for serious penalties.

The calculation of these deadlines will be interrupted by the commission of new crimes during its course.

b) To cancel the annotations of security measures:

The annotations of the security measures will be canceled once the respective measure has been fulfilled or prescribed.

Police records are the data referring to a subject that is part of the databases of the State Security Forces and Bodies, that is, the Civil Guard, the National Police or their equivalents, the Judicial Police Units, of the Local and Municipal Police or of the Urban Guard. They do not require the commission of a crime and an indictment, that is, any situation in which a person is involved and the agents have requested their identification data and work on their records, as occurs in an arrest, in which case police records are generated, but no criminal records.

The cancellation of police records can occur in three ways:

Cancellation ex officio: The deadlines for prescribing criminal liability established in the Criminal Code will be taken into account.

Cancellation at the request of a party: It will be decreed in those cases in which the Judicial Authority issues a conviction against the applicant, being mandatory to carry out, the previous cancellation of the criminal record derived from said sentence, in the Central Registry of Penalties of the Ministry of Justice.

Anullment: It will proceed in all cases in which the resolution adopted by the Judicial Authority is of acquittal, dismissal or file.

Likewise, the annulment will be decreed in the cases in which, even if the condemnatory judicial sentence has elapsed, five years have elapsed, counting from the date of final remission of the penalty imposed, without incorporating new unfavorable data into the applicant’s personal file.