Be more careful when making recommendations.
(Baonghean) - In the draft Decree regulating measures to prevent, stop and handle acts of resisting law enforcement officers, the Ministry of Public Security has proposed to the government and the National Assembly as follows:
“In cases where there is factual basis to believe that the act of resisting a person on official duty will cause serious consequences to the life, health, or property of the person on official duty or of others, or there are signs of a serious, very serious, or especially serious crime, the person on official duty may use support tools, technical means, or shoot directly at the person and vehicle violating the law to defend, attack, neutralize the act of resisting a person on official duty, promptly prevent consequences from occurring, and arrest the person who resisted the person on official duty.”
First of all, we acknowledge the merits and sympathize with the difficulties and dangers of law enforcement officers when facing the fierce reactions of lawbreakers. There have been many examples of bravery and sacrifice of law enforcement officers in the face of fierce reactions from lawbreakers. In recent years, crime has been on the rise, and acts of resistance against law enforcement officers have become increasingly fierce and dangerous. That requires the law to have appropriate sanctions to deal with the situation, creating favorable conditions for law enforcement officers to complete their tasks. However, carefully reading the draft decree above of the Ministry of Public Security, we cannot help but wonder.
The permission to “shoot directly at people” is extremely important, so the content of the document must be transparent, authentic, must not cause misunderstandings or must not contain unclear concepts that are being debated and discussed. When shooting, it means that death may occur, any debate about right or wrong afterwards will not bring the person back to life, so it is necessary to contribute ideas to help the document have more transparent and accurate words. We see that the draft decree states “In case there is factual basis to believe that…” (meaning there is basis for the person performing official duties to believe that the person resisting the person performing official duties will take dangerous actions, causing serious, very serious, especially serious consequences)… “then the person performing official duties is allowed to shoot directly at the person and the violating vehicle in self-defense…”. The document is written like that, meaning that the person performing the official duty has the right to subjectively "believe" that the reality is dangerous or not dangerous, so that he has the full right to decide whether to shoot or not to shoot. So, if the person performing the official duty makes a mistake in assessing the danger or not and shoots and kills someone, who is responsible for that mistake? Therefore, the document should not use the word "believe" because the word "believe" is subjective and personal, not specific, and not commensurate with the extremely important act of "shooting directly at someone"!
In addition, the concepts of severity such as “serious”, “very serious”, “especially serious”… are not clearly defined in the document, so it is very likely to cause different applications and unfortunate misunderstandings! Meanwhile, the mistake of shooting at people is also considered “especially serious” because it is directly related to human life. I hope the Ministry of Public Security, the Government, and the National Assembly will review every word, every letter, and be more careful before legalizing this important document.
Litmus
