The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Criminal Procedure Code takes effect from July 1, 2025.
One of the notable contents is the regulation that intermediate investigators and senior investigators who are commune-level police chiefs or deputy police chiefs assigned by provincial-level police chiefs to conduct prosecution and investigation of cases for less serious crimes and serious crimes occurring in the commune-level area have the duties and powers of investigators as prescribed in Clause 1, Article 37.
At the same time, perform a number of tasks and powers of the head and deputy head of the Investigation Agency as prescribed in Points a, c, Clause 1 and 2, Article 36, except for the decision to apply, change, or cancel special investigation and prosecution measures.
The commune-level police chief or the deputy police chief is directly responsible for organizing and directing the reception and settlement of information about crimes, prosecution and investigation by the investigation agency; deciding to assign or change investigators and investigating officers.
Be allowed to inspect the activities of receiving, handling criminal information sources, prosecuting, investigating criminal cases of investigators and investigating officers; deciding to change or cancel unfounded and illegal decisions of investigators.
The Minister of Public Security shall preside over and coordinate with the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuracy to specify this content in detail.
The passed law also stipulates that the commune police are not an investigation unit. The addition of this regulation is at the request of the Ministry of Public Security, to remove difficulties and obstacles in practice when not organizing district-level police investigation agencies.
The head of the provincial police investigation agency shall authorize the investigator to be the commune-level police chief or the deputy police chief to perform a number of tasks and powers of the head of the investigation agency, so the head of the provincial police investigation agency shall be responsible for the acts and decisions performed by that investigator within the scope of authorization.
