Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962

113 Mitigation and remission of incapacities. N.I.

(1) Where a person is convicted of the corrupt practice of incurring or aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring any other person to incur any expenses in contravention of section forty-one or of knowingly making the declaration required by sub-section (5) of that section falsely or of any illegal practice, the court before whom he is convicted may, if it thinks fit in the special circumstances, mitigate or wholly remit any such incapacity as is imposed by section one hundred and twelve.

(2) Where any person is subject to any incapacity by virtue of the report of an election court or of election commissioners, and he or some other person in respect of whose acts the incapacity was imposed is on a prosecution acquitted of any of the matters in respect of which the incapacity was imposed, the court may order that the incapacity shall thenceforth cease so far as it is imposed in respect of those matters.

(3) Where any person who is subject to any incapacity as aforesaid is on a prosecution convicted of any such matters as aforesaid, no further incapacity shall be taken to be imposed by reason of the conviction, and the court shall have the like power, if any, to mitigate or remit for the future the incapacity in respect of the matters of which he is convicted, as if the incapacity had been imposed by reason of the conviction.

(4) A court exercising any of the powers conferred by sub-sections (2) and (3) shall make an order declaring how far, if at all, the incapacities imposed by virtue of the relevant report remain unaffected by the exercise of the said power, and that order shall be conclusive for all purposes.

(5) Where a person convicted of a corrupt or illegal practice is subsequently reported by an election court to have been guilty thereof, no further incapacity shall be imposed on him under this Act by reason of the report.

(6) Where any person is subject to any incapacity by virtue of a conviction or of the report of an election court, and any witness who gave evidence against that person upon the proceeding for the conviction or report is convicted of perjury in respect of that evidence, the incapacitated person may apply to the High Court, and that court, if satisfied that the conviction or report so far as respects that person was based upon perjury, may order that the incapacity shall thenceforth cease.