A group of Murang’a residents have petitioned Parliament to abolish the police clearance certificate as a mandatory requirement for job seekers.
The petitioners led by Susan Gachango also want National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi to have MPs pass a law to remove criminal records after the fifth year of offence.
They cited US State of Indiana and UK as examples of jurisdictions where certain misdemeanors and non-violent felonies are expunged from offenders’ records after several years.
The petitioners argue that the requirement by employers for job seekers to produce police clearance certificates is not a statutory requirement, but instead infringes on their constitutional rights to privacy as it exposes the job seeker’s past criminal records.
The exposure, they noted, is unfair since the job seeker might have committed the offence as an ignorant minor or may have been wrongly jailed for offences that he or she never committed, particularly in the absence of a good lawyer to defend him or her in court.
“Further, the petitioners view this requirement as discriminatory since many employers may use the police clearance certificate as a basis for disqualifying job seekers having criminal records irrespective of their academic and other qualifications,” Muturi said while reading the petition.
Muturi referred the petition to the departmental committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Edited by CM
