Continuing the 9th Session, on June 24, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law on Criminal Judicial Assistance.
National Assembly delegate Nguyen Tam Hung (Ba Ria - Vung Tau delegation) commented on applying measures to ensure the confiscation and handling of evidence and assets. The delegate said that the draft law has made progress in clearly defining the scope of confiscation and handling of assets with foreign elements, but there is still a lack of specific regulations on sharing assets when collected.
The practice of handling cases of money laundering and drug trafficking across borders shows that related assets are often scattered in many countries. Without an asset sharing mechanism, Vietnam will face difficulties in recovering and causing damage to the budget.
Delegate Tran Thi Thu Phuoc ( Kon Tum Delegation) emphasized that this is the first time the law has issued regulations on international cooperation in asset recovery, a big step forward, meeting the urgent requirements of anti-corruption and money laundering work.
However, the delegate also said that the regulations on asset sharing agreements in Clauses 2 and 5 of Article 32 are still quite general, not creating a clear and transparent enough mechanism to encourage partner countries to prioritize cooperation with Vietnam.
To be able to solve this problem, the female delegate proposed to add to Article 32 with the content: "The Government stipulates in detail the principles, order and procedures for agreements to share assets with foreign countries on the basis of compliance with Vietnamese law, the United Nations Convention against Corruption and international practices".
Explaining and clarifying the opinions raised by delegates, Director of the Supreme People's Procuracy Nguyen Huy Tien said that with the issue of asset recovery, this content has been implemented very actively through cooperation such as cooperation with Singapore and has recovered a large amount of corrupt assets.
"We have been very active in recovering assets. For example, through cooperation with Singapore, we have recovered assets in major cases. Recently, cooperation in recovering corrupt assets has also had very good results," said Director Nguyen Huy Tien.
According to him, this is a relatively difficult problem, but Vietnam is still persistently implementing it through more than 30 signed legal aid agreements.
"On the basis of "let it go back and forth", we can effectively implement the issues that delegates gave opinions on," said Director Nguyen Huy Tien.
Regarding the receiving unit, the draft law clearly states that the central criminal justice agency receiving it is the Supreme People's Procuracy. In the process of receiving requests from foreign agencies and other entities, the Supreme People's Procuracy will coordinate and implement each stage of the proceedings.
For example, during the investigation phase, trial phase, and execution phase, the Procuracy will carry out this coordination. We will flexibly implement according to inter-sectoral guidelines.
Accordingly, which subjects, which agencies, authority by territory, authority by work or authority by handling capacity will be coordinated in detail.
