Justice minister Amy Adams has repeated her stance that she would consider quashing historical convictions for gay sex on a case by case basis but warns that it would be "a very difficult process." A spokesperson for Adams told GayNZ.com Daily News earlier this year that a broad brush wiping of historical convictions would not be possible as it would not be possible with hindsight to be sure candidate convictions did not arise out of non-consensual sex or sex with a minor. "It's a very difficult process because the way the law is crafted... it didn't distinguish between consensual and non-consensual acts," she says. "It would take quite a detailed process if it was even possible to go through case by case and work through whether each offence in each case would still be illegal under today's law." It has been estimated there may be as many 400 convictions which might not have happened after the homosexual Law Reform Act of 1986 decriminalised consenting sexual relations between men over the age of sixteen.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 7th July 2016 - 7:34pm