The National Assembly officially abolished 8 crimes with the death penalty, including embezzlement.

The National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code. (Photo: Doan Tan/VNA)

The Penal Code is an important law, creating a legal basis for social management, crime prevention and combat, maintaining security, order and social safety, protecting the interests of organizations, the State and citizens.

However, after more than 8 years of implementation, the country's situation has changed greatly in all aspects, so the provisions of the Penal Code have revealed many difficulties and inadequacies.

In recent times, the Party and State have also issued many policies on crime prevention and combat to suit the country's economic and social development situation, requiring timely institutionalization of these policies into the Penal Code.

Amending and supplementing the Penal Code at the present time is necessary. The Law amends 38 articles and adds 1 article (crime of illegal use of narcotics).

Specifically, the Law abolishes eight crimes with the death penalty: Crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government; Crime of sabotaging the State's material and technical facilities; Crime of producing and trading in counterfeit medicines and preventive medicines; Crime of undermining peace and waging aggressive wars; Crime of espionage; Crime of illegally transporting narcotics; Crime of embezzlement of property; Crime of accepting bribes.

The law also stipulates a transitional provision: death sentences imposed before July 1 for those who committed the above 8 crimes but have not yet been executed will not be executed, the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court will decide to convert the death penalty to life imprisonment.

According to the Government's Summary Report on receiving and explaining opinions on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code, the abolition of the death penalty for 8 crimes as in the draft Law submitted to the 15th National Assembly at the 9th Session is appropriate in the current conditions of Vietnam, on the one hand still meeting the requirements of the fight against crime, on the other hand meeting the process of continuing to narrow the death penalty, as well as the requirements of cooperation and expansion of international relations for national development.

Particularly for the crimes of embezzlement and bribery, after abolishing the death penalty, in order to ensure the recovery of assets obtained from crimes and at the same time encourage criminals to actively report during the process of resolving cases, the draft Law has amended and supplemented the provisions in Clause 1, Article 63 in the direction: "A person sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of embezzlement or bribery can only be considered for a reduction in the term of serving the sentence when he has proactively returned at least three-quarters of the embezzled or bribed assets and has actively cooperated with the authorities in detecting, investigating, and handling crimes or has made great achievements."

Regarding the addition of the crime of illegal use of narcotics, the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code adds the crime of illegal use of narcotics (Article 256a) in the direction of only handling those who are in the process of drug addiction treatment or have just finished the process of drug addiction treatment but continue to illegally use narcotics.

The Law increases the starting prison sentence for a number of crimes related to the environment, food safety, and drugs, such as environmental pollution (Article 235), violation of regulations on hazardous waste management (Article 236), illegal production of narcotics (Article 248), illegal possession of narcotics (Article 249), illegal trading of narcotics (Article 251), and violation of regulations on food safety (Article 317).

The increase in the above penalty level is in accordance with the requirements of the fight against crime in our country at present and in the following years.

At the same time, the fine level is doubled for crimes related to the environment, production and trade of counterfeit food, food additives, medicines, preventive medicines, animal feed, fertilizers, veterinary medicines, pesticides, plant varieties, animal breeds, food safety and corruption crimes to suit the current economic and social conditions in our country, taking into account factors of price fluctuations and average income per capita (the basic salary increased by 2.04 times, average income per capita increased by 2.02 times) from 2015 to the present.

The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Penal Code takes effect from July 1, 2025./.

According to VNA

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/quoc-hoi-chinh-thuc-bo-8-toi-danh-co-hinh-phat-tu-hinh-trong-do-co-toi-tham-o-253161.htm