This morning (September 3), in Hanoi, the Office of the President held a press conference to announce the President's Order to promulgate the Laws and Ordinance that were just passed by the 15th National Assembly at the 9th Session.
At the press conference, informing about some contents of the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code, Senior Lieutenant General Le Quoc Hung - Deputy Minister of Public Security - said that this Law takes effect from July 1, 2025.
Accordingly, the Law abolishes the death penalty for 8 crimes (Crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government (Article 109); Crime of Esping (Article 110); Crimes of sabotage of facilities and techniques of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Article 114); Crimes of manufacturing and trading counterfeit goods as medicine and preventative drugs (Article 194); Crimes of illegally transporting drugs (Article 250); Crimes of embezzlement of property (Article 353); Crimes of accepting bribes (Article 354); Crimes of sabotage of peace, causing war of aggression (Article 421).
As for the crime of embezzlement of property and the crime of receiving bribes, after removing the death penalty, in order to ensure the recovery of assets arising from crimes and at the same time encourage criminals to actively report during the process of handling the case, the Law has amended and supplemented the provisions in Clause 1, Article 63 in the direction: "A person sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzlement of property and the crime of receiving bribes can only be considered for a reduced term of serving the sentence when he has proactively returned at least 3/4 of the embezzlement and received bribes and has actively cooperated with the competent authority in detecting, investigating, handling crimes or making great contributions".
In addition, the Law doubles fines for 24 crimes, focusing on the group of crimes related to counterfeit goods, environment, food safety, and corruption.
In addition, the Law also increases the prison sentence in 8 articles in the current Penal Code, focusing on groups of crimes related to the environment, drugs, and food safety.
Regarding transitional provisions (Article 4), if the provisions of this Law are not in the interests of the offender, they will not apply to a crime that occurred before 0:00 on July 1, 2025 but is being discovered or being investigated, prosecuted, or tried after that time, except in cases where the offender commits the crimes specified in Articles 353 (Obscenity of property) and 354 (Crime of receiving bribes) of the Penal Code but according to the provisions of this Law (eliminating the death penalty for these crimes) and is converted into life imprisonment, the regulation on being only considered for a reduction in the term of serving the penalty when meeting the criteria has proactively returned at least 3/4 of the embezzlement assets, received bribes and actively cooperated with the authorities in detecting, investigating, handling, or handling major crimes shall still apply.
The Law also guides the handling of situations arising from people who have been sentenced to death for crimes that have abolished the death penalty in the Law before July 1, 2025 but have not yet been implemented; Guidelines for handling situations arising from the execution of life imprisonment sentences for those who commit crimes of embezzlement of property and bribery (Clause 4 and Clause 5, Article 4).
To ensure fairness and avoid causing disadvantages to criminals, Clause 5, Article 4 also stipulates that the life imprisonment sentenced before July 1, 2025 for acts of embezzlement and bribery does not require the condition of " proactively returning at least 3/4 of embezzlement assets, receiving bribes and actively cooperating with competent authorities in detecting, investigating, handling crimes or making great contributions" when considering reducing the sentencing level for criminals.
