With modern criminal record systems being so easily accessed by employers, more and more of them are conducting criminal record checks as part of their pre-employment screening practices.

Employment is probably the single largest reason why getting a Canadian pardon for your criminal record is so important. Whether or not your criminal record affects your employment search, or your current job, depends on the job and on your location.

Human Rights Legislation, Federal and some Provincial, provide protection against most discrimination based on your criminal record. So, the first thing you need to know before you answer an employment application question about your criminal record is whether or not the employer has the right to ask in the first place. Various Human Rights Acts prohibit employers from requesting job applicants from disclosing if they have a criminal record, depending on the circumstances of employment.

If you have a criminal record, and you are looking to apply for a job or position, find out whether the company or organization is federal or provincial, and then review the following list:

– Protection for pardon records, no protection for unpardoned records

– No protection

– Protection for both pardoned and unpardoned records

– No protection

– No protection

– No protection

– No protection

– Protection for pardon records, no protection for unpardoned records

– Protection for criminal records

– Protection for both pardoned and unpardoned records

– No protection

– Protection for pardon records, no protection for unpardoned records

– Protection for criminal records

– Protection for pardon records, no protection for unpardoned records

Under the Criminal Records Act, federal government employment departments ask questions that could expose a conviction for which a pardon has been granted. If a federal employer wishes to obtain information about a person’s criminal record history, the question should be phrased: “Have you ever been convicted of an offence for which you have not received a pardon?”

In this case a pardoned individual can answer “No.” If you do not have a pardon, however, you will need to obtain one before you apply, or you will almost certainly be turned down for the position.

If your potential or current employer falls under provincial legislation, you will have to check whether your province has protection in place for pardoned, and in some cases, even unpardoned criminal records.

Despite all the human rights protection in place in Canada, many employers still screen for criminal records.  In many cases, employers may ask for a criminal record check if they have established that it is a Bona Fide Occupational Requirement (BFOR), defined as a justifiable reason for discrimination based on a business necessity. If screening for a criminal records is required for the safe and efficient operation of the organization, or a requirement that can be clearly defended as intrinsically required by the tasks an employee is expected to perform, then they can lawfully inquire about your criminal past.

Some of the most common BFOR reasons used to conduct criminal record checks include:

Requirement to be bonded
Required to work on a secured job-site
Employee theft prevention
Required to work with/for vulnerable persons
Required to travel internationally/cross borders.

Construction on secure jobsites, law enforcement and corrections, legal, any job involving cashiers and cash handling, financial, banking and insurance, accounting, medical and nursing, dental and dental assistance, volunteering and social work, veterinarian, port and marine, airport and borders.

Many businesses conduct criminal record checks through third parties as part of their pre-employment screening practices. Usually, the applicant will sign an application for employment which includes authorization to conduct a background check. The employer will then hand off the file to a third party who conducts the criminal record check and reports the results exclusively to the employer. It is then the employer’s option whether to disclose the results of the check to the potential candidate.

A lot of times, to avoid potential liability, the employer will simply not call the candidate back for a second interview. You will not even know that your criminal record was the reason you were not considered further for the position.

A criminal record that has been successfully pardoned CANNOT be accessed by any employer, even in provinces that do not offer protection for discrimination based on pardoned or unpardoned criminal records.

Once you have been pardoned, your criminal record will not turn up in a criminal record check, plain and simple. Even police will no longer have access to your criminal record. If you are interested in a Canadian pardon and would like more information, then visit www.ExpressPardons.com today.

all–courtrecords.com Need to do a free criminal records search online? Let me show you how to do a free criminal records search online using google or other free resources.

Technorati Tags: Canadian, CHECK, Criminal, Employment, Pardon, Record

The recent and long time awaited for new Illinois Freedom of Information Act (Senate Bill 189), passed by the state’s Senate now awaits being signed into law by the Governor. If signed, the new law will take effect starting 1 January 2010, hopefully radically changing the situation with the current state of government records openness for public inspection that is regarded by vast number of the state’s residents as unsatisfactory.

The issues has a really long history, and Illinois seems to have been the most reluctant state regarding the development of its own legal regulations governing the access to the public records held by the state’s repositories. Just consider the fact that Illinois was the last of the US states to enact its own FOIA as late as in 1983, 17 years after the federal Freedom of Information Act was signed into law by the US President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966.

Since its adoption in 1988 the Illinois FOIA law received much criticism from the behalf of citizens and public rights advocacy organizations for being too easy to manipulate, especially with no penalty risk for the officials due to the absence of any penalty provision. The year 1999 action by group of the Illinois journalists confirmed those concerns did have valid grounds. A large group of journalists then engaged in a statewide campaign simultaneously requesting public records from county governments in all 102 counties across the sate of Illinois. From all requests for viewing public records made by journalists statewide, nearly 70% of the requesters were told to come later, while 25% of the government units just refused to release the public records under different pretexts.

Since then several public activist groups kept campaigning to amend the existing FOIA fighting to force the governments change the way they handle the requests for public records. Their efforts had been largely in vain, though, until the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan started backing the action several years ago.

Now the community believes that after the Senate voted for the new law, there will be no opposition from behalf of the Governor Patt Quinn and the new FOIA will be signed by him. If the law is enacted, it will be mandated that every government outlet across the state designates a special official responsible for freedom of information related issues as seen by the new law. All of those officers are to undergo proper training at the attorney general’s office.

With new law coming in effect the government bodies will be obligated to respond requests within five days since the request was filed. But the most important change about the new Freedom of Information Act is that it provides for introduction of a public access counselor position in the attorney general’s office along with definition of the wide range of power of that official needed to help citizens in government public records access with the authority of issuing binding opinion and even bringing case to court. Unfortunately, the clause providing for criminal punishment for non-compliance with the new law by government officials and employees was removed from the law in the process of hearing.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/illinois-making-government-records-as-public-as-they-should-be-1019998.html

Author: C. Dyson

About the Author:

C. Dyson is an educator and researcher of the legal matters pertinent to both privacy protection and the right of people for the access to unbiased information you can trust, so every citizen could make informed and law compliant decision, be it in public or business domain. He also writes on hot topics and disputable issues concerning personal safety. His resource dedicated to background check techniques.

Technorati Tags: Crime, Employment, Government Records, Investigation, Labour Law, Law, Legal, People, Society