MONTEGO BAY, St James — Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) General Secretary Dr Horace Chang has signalled that, should the party be voted back into power, it will push for legislative reform to ensure convicted drug mules, who have paid their debt to society, will be eligible to have their records expunged, paving the way for them to “live a normal life”.

He said in the past it had been almost a fad for school leavers in Montego Bay to attempt to traffic drugs overseas in pursuit of quick money, often resulting in their arrest. While he conceded that their actions were illegal, Dr Chang said it is time to have the records of those who qualify cleaned up.

“There are lot of people in Montego Bay, they have a life sentence,” said Dr Chang, who is also incumbent Member of Parliament for St James North Western as well as minister of national security.

He was speaking during Sunday night’s JLP mass rally and manifesto launch in Montego Bay’s Sam Sharpe Square,

“They cannot get a taxi licence. They cannot get a promotion. We pledge to you tonight, we pledge to you that after September 3 we will ensure that the law is modified to give those people a chance again,” he assured.

Expungement is the process by which a conviction is removed from an individual’s criminal/police record after a specific period of time and after certain requirements have been met. Dr Chang said in 2014, under a People’s National Party (PNP) Government, then Justice Minister Mark Golding placed the offence of drug trafficking under Schedule Three, making those criminal records ineligible for expungement.

He contrasted that with what he said was the PNP’s more recent push for other legislative changes.

“They go to Parliament and argue life sentence for murderer. They argue and get life sentence for abusers and child murderers. They come and argue and get harsh sentence every time in Parliament but they have not modified the law to commit decent Jamaicans who made a mistake early in life, to a life sentence,” he added.

The Ministry of Justice has long championed expungement of records for certain categories of convictions. There are two conditions that must be satisfied in order to qualify: the punishment was a non-custodial sentence, or one that was less than five years, and the individual must have a clean record during a set period of time known as the rehabilitation period.

According to the justice ministry website, the principle behind expungement “is that a person who has made a sincere and successful attempt to be law-abiding should be given the opportunity to start afresh without being haunted by his/her unfortunate past”. Among the list of benefits to expungement it lists are securing a job and peace of mind.

“There can be no peace without justice. So we are working with social transformation, with the police, security forces, to ensure there is peace, but we have to have justice — justice in health care, in education, but [also] justice in the criminal justice system,” Dr Chang said Sunday.

“And we will make the amendment to ensure that all of them who have done their time — have 20, 25 years of goodwill — all of them can in fact face a panel and get expungement required to live a normal life,” he added.