Legislation has been passed to amend the the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 in relation to a person’s criminal history.

The amendments allow domestic violence notations to be administratively made on a person’s criminal history or a formal record of conviction (rather than through the making of a specific additional court order), provided the person is convicted of an offence for which the charge has been noted as a domestic violence offence.

An order can be made that this type of notation not be made if a Court is satisfied that the offence is not a domestic violence offence, of course, the prosecution bears the onus of proving that an offence is a domestic violence offence.

The amendments also clarify that domestic violence notations do not apply to a person’s traffic history