Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
> 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.

The only two Japanese lawyers I know are an immigration lawyer and one
who works mostly with family law. I'll run things past them before
heading to Immigration and the printers.

At the moment I'm preparing the forms in English, since they need to be
translated into Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and
Spanish. The last time we made forms in Japanese (2001 or so) the
resulting translations were vague beyond comprehension.

Currently I'm leaning towards using something along the following lines.
Problem is still to ensure that some Swedish guy with a parking fine or
Merkin with a DUI record doesn't write me an email asking "What if..."

***

Have you ever been convicted of a crime in any country, including any
conviction which has subsequently been removed from official police
records through a pardon, amnesty or legal action?

Have you ever been charged with any offence that is currently awaiting
legal action/procedures?

Have you ever been acquitted of any any criminal offence or other
offence on the grounds of mental illness, insanity or unsoundness of mind?

Have you ever been removed or deported from any country (including Japan)?

Have you ever left a country to avoid being removed or deported?

Have you ever been excluded from or asked to leave any country
(including Japan)?

Have you ever overstayed (even by 1 day) a visa issued by any country
(including Japan)?

Have you ever been refused a Japanese visa (either at Embassies or
Consulates outside Japan, or at a Japanese airport)?

Have you ever unlawfully distributed or sold a controlled substance, or
been involved in any activities related to the illegal movement of
people to any country (including Japan)?

Have you ever liked manga, fansubbing, natto, judo, karate, fantasized
about becoming a ninja, played pachinko or professed to actually support
and believe in the Jordan method?

> 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.

I wouldn't be too worried about not being a lawyer, nor a Japanese one
for that matter. My views regarding lawyers are similar to those
regarding doctors/ surgeons/ physicians etc - just a bunch of ex-med
students. I'm not a Latinist either, but shouldn't it be mala prohibi*t*um ?

-- 
"They took you up to midnight Mass and left you in the lurch
So you dropped a button in the plate and spewed up in the church."

 - The Sickbed of Cuchulainn