With 429/439 delegates participating in the vote (equal to 89.75% of the total number of National Assembly delegates), the National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code. The law takes effect from July 1.
The law has abolished the death penalty in 8 crimes including: Crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government; crime of spying; crime of sabotage of Vietnam's facilities and techniques; crime of manufacturing and trading counterfeit goods such as medicine and preventative drugs; crime of illegally transporting drugs; crime of embezzlement of property; crime of accepting bribes; crime of disturbing peace and causing war of aggression.
Those sentenced to death for these 8 crimes before July 1, 2025 will not have to be executed but will be transferred to life in prison.
Notably, the law stipulates the crimes of embezzlement of property and bribery, after the death penalty is abolished, to ensure the recovery of assets obtained from crime, while encouraging criminals to actively declare during the process of handling cases.
Accordingly, a person sentenced to life in prison for embezzlement of property or bribery can only be considered for a reduced sentence if he has proactively returned at least three-quarters of his embezzlement or bribery assets and has actively cooperated with the authorities in detecting, investigating, handling crimes or making great contributions.
The law has also added the crime of illegal use of drugs in the direction of only handling those who are in the process of quitting smoking or have just finished the drug addiction treatment process but continue to illegally use drugs, in order to reduce drug use and increase management efficiency.
However, Article 256a of the law amending and supplementing a number of articles this time does not apply to all illegal drug users but only applies to those who are on drugs or have taken drug addiction treatment, but this measure "has failed", drug addicts continue to illegally use drugs.
Regarding raising the prison sentence, fined for some crimes, increasing the starting prison sentence for some crimes related to the environment, food safety, and drugs such as environmental pollution (Article 235), violating regulations on hazardous waste management (Article 236), illegal drug production (Article 248), illegal possession of drugs (Article 249), illegal drug trafficking (Article 251), food safety violations (Article 317)...
The increase in the above penalty level is in line with the requirements of fighting against crime in our country at present and in the following years.
