The National Assembly Standing Committee agreed to stipulate that people sentenced to death for embezzlement who actively remedy the consequences will be considered not to be sentenced to death.

Presenting the Report to the National Assembly Standing Committee seeking opinions on a number of major issues of the draft Penal Code (amended), on the morning of September 14, Chairman of the Judicial Committee Nguyen Van Hien said that many opinions suggested removing point c, clause 3, Article 39, because the regulation that death penalty is not to be carried out on those who commit crimes for economic purposes if after being convicted they have remedied the consequences, can easily lead to the understanding that money is used to escape the death penalty.

The majority of opinions of the Standing Committee of the Judiciary believe that the regulation on the type of crime "with economic purpose" is unclear, needs to be regulated more specifically and the offender must meet many factors to be considered not to be executed.

Accordingly, it is proposed to revise this point as follows: "A person sentenced to death for the crime of manufacturing and trading in counterfeit medicines or disease prevention drugs; embezzlement of property or bribery has proactively overcome the consequences of the crime he/she committed, actively cooperated with the authorities in detecting, investigating and handling the crime or made great achievements".

Discussing this issue, Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong said that the regulation should not be applied to the "crime of accepting bribes" as the above plan because accepting bribes is very serious and is an active act of corruption.

Mr. Ha Hung Cuong agreed to consider not carrying out the death penalty for embezzlement because embezzlement has many forms, there are cases of taking advantage of loopholes in state management to embezzle, but in essence it is not active corruption.

Although the argument on the death penalty is not really convincing, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung also emphasized that the spirit of law-making is still to reduce the death penalty.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung

Agreeing with Minister Ha Hung Cuong, the National Assembly Chairman suggested not to consider the death penalty for bribery. However, the amount of bribery that would result in criminal liability needs to be studied more appropriately.

The National Assembly Chairman also agreed with the regulation that the death penalty should not be applied to people aged 75 and over for the sake of humanity and international integration. Although this subject escaped the death penalty, he still had to receive a long-term prison sentence, life imprisonment, and was not pardoned. The public opinion also basically agreed with this content.

Concluding the discussion session, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Uong Chu Luu said that the majority of National Assembly deputies as well as members of the National Assembly Standing Committee agreed with the direction of reducing the death penalty in three aspects: Reducing penalties for some crimes; regulating the quantitative framework in the direction of raising in crimes to reduce the death penalty and not applying the death penalty to women raising children under 36 months, pregnant women and criminals from 75 years old.

However, the abolition of the death penalty for war crimes such as genocide requires more specific regulations. Because the law stipulates that the highest penalty for murder is the death penalty, while genocide is the killing of many people, killing civilians... without the death penalty, which is inconsistent with criminal policy.

Regarding economic crimes, Mr. Uong Chu Luu said that those sentenced to death for embezzlement who have fundamentally remedied the consequences and made great achievements can be considered not to have the death penalty executed but still face a long-term or life sentence. As for the crime of accepting bribes, it should not be mentioned./.

According to Vov.vn