What did Nghe An delegates contribute to the draft Law on Anti-Corruption?

Delegate Nguyen Thanh Hien. Photo: Diep Anh

According to Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province Nguyen Thanh Hien,Expanding anti-corruption to the non-state sector will also ensure consistency with the 2015 Penal Code, which stipulates criminal liability of people holding positions and powers in non-state enterprises and organizations for acts of embezzlement, bribery, bribery brokerage, as required by the United Nations Convention against Corruption, of which Vietnam is a member.

“One of the current requirements for anti-corruption work is to prevent the dissipation of assets or limit the damage caused by corrupt acts,” Mr. Hien emphasized.

Delegate Hien pointed out the reality: Although inspection and auditing activities have discovered violations related to the assets and income of cadres, civil servants and public employees, the implementation results still focus more on determining the level of violations and applying forms of handling violations rather than preventing the dissipation of assets and recovering assets or limiting damage caused by corrupt acts.

“The summary report on anti-corruption work shows that the recovery rate after inspection, audit and through trial activities of cases with signs of corruption in the recent past is still low and ineffective. In addition, the consequences of corruption for the State, people, businesses and society are very large, but the effectiveness of prevention or application of remedial measures is still limited. This is an issue that voters and people are extremely concerned about,” the delegate cited.

“Therefore, along with the regulations on handling corrupt acts discovered through inspection, examination and auditing activities in Article 63 and Article 70 of the draft law, it is necessary to supplement regulations on coordination mechanisms between agencies, organizations and units in detecting, investigating and handling cases with signs of crime as recommended by inspection and auditing agencies,” delegate Nguyen Thanh Hien suggested.

Delegate Hoang Thi Thu Trang. Photo: Diep Anh

Participating in the discussion of this draft law, National Assembly member Hoang Thi Thu Trang - Director of the Nghe An Judgment Enforcement Department emphasized: According to the report of the Government Inspectorate, after 10 years of implementing the Law on Anti-Corruption, we have recovered about 4,600 billion VND/59,000 billion VND, which is only 8%. Thus, logically, the problem posed in this law amendment is that there must be a solution, including institutional solutions.

"However, when studying this draft, I found that it did not focus much on this content but mainly cited current regulations," delegate Trang commented.

Regarding untruthfully declared assets and additional income assets with unexplained origins as stipulated in Article 59 of the draft, delegates said that it is necessary to separate two situations.

The first situation is that the assets are not declared truthfully, which is a violation of the Anti-Corruption Law and the forms of handling are clearly stipulated in Article 118 of the draft. The second situation is that the assets and income increase but the reasonable origin cannot be explained. This is an issue that many voters, National Assembly deputies, and experts are concerned about, but so far it has not been resolved.

“Many delegates said that first of all, the law must determine what is reasonable. In my opinion, that is the measure to determine the legality of income assets, from which to determine the handling options such as taxation, administrative fines or recovery. Otherwise, the proposed options are only suitable for voters' wishes, not suitable for reality, it is lacking in legal basis... However, in our country, it is not easy to determine because of characteristics such as the habit of saving, saving, giving in cash. The right to own assets and the obligation to prove violations of the law in our country's law have specific characteristics compared to other countries. Therefore, it is necessary to be careful step by step to continue researching and developing this regulation. At the same time, it is necessary to focus on having effective regulations for recovering corrupt assets,” emphasized National Assembly delegate Hoang Thi Thu Trang.

On the other hand, the delegate also proposed that there should be specific regulations on the conditions, processes and procedures for applying measures to prevent the dispersion of corrupt assets. “Practice has shown that by the stage of civil judgment enforcement, most assets have been transferred and dispersed, so it is necessary to specifically regulate the authority, conditions, order and procedures for implementing measures to prevent and disperse assets in this law. This will create a legal corridor for agencies to feel secure in implementing, enhance responsibility in preventing the dispersion of assets and avoid arbitrariness in performing tasks,” delegate Trang informed.