Declan Murphy wrote:

> Ryan Ginstrom wrote:
> 
>>"Declan Murphy" <declan_murphy@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:4133F428.30000@hotmail.com...
>>
>>
>>>Problem for me is defining 犯罪を理由とする処分を受けたこと - I was
>>>intending to translate it "Have you been convicted of a criminal
>>>offence", but am worried that some applicants will interpret that as
>>>including speeding/parking fines etc. Being arrested, questioned,
>>>cautioned etc apparently wouldn't be an issue.
>>>
>>>So what is a criminal record in whichever country you come from?
>>
>>At the risk of bringing down the wrath of the lawyers and law-school
>>graduates amongst us, I would say that in order to have a criminal record
>>one must be convicted by a court. So fines/warnings/jail-cell beatings would
>>not count.
> 
> 
> I would have assumed fines would count, and that warnings etc wouldn't
> under whatever definition is used. Cue the Kevins.

You are talking about Japanese law, so you need a Japanese lawyer. I
think you are on right track. Certainly, if you were only warned, it
wouldn't be a part of your criminal record. Mercy and leniency aren't
necessarily warnings, though: if you were caught, convicted, and then
your sentence was vacated/waived/abolished by whatever legal system you
were under, that would still be a part of your record.

I'm going to avoid most of the latin, but there are two basic classes of
crimes: those things that are bad because they are bad (murder, rape,
larceny, ..), known as mala in se, and those that are bad because the
law says so (driving on the wrong side of the road, illegal parking,
using a elephant to plow a corn-field in Tennessee, etc.), known as mala
prohibidum. For purposes of your form, I would probably not count
convictions for mala prohibidum as a record. IANAL, and I most certainly
am not a Japanese lawyer.

KWW