Encourage corrupt criminals to voluntarily return misappropriated assets

The Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) has just sent a report to the Politburo; the Secretariat; the Central Steering Committee on anti-corruption and anti-negativity; the National Assembly Standing Committee; the Government and agencies proposing many issues after supervising the recovery of lost and misappropriated assets in criminal cases of corruption and economic crimes.

According to the Vietnam Fatherland Front, through monitoring, the recovery of lost and misappropriated assets in criminal cases of corruption and economic crimes has achieved increasingly positive results.

However, the amount of assets to be recovered in cases is very large, but by the time the cases are resolved, there is very little or no remaining assets to ensure recovery. The application of measures to prevent asset dissipation is still low, the process of resolving cases is still slow...

Many seized assets have disputes over joint ownership (between spouses/children/relatives of the offender; between shareholders in a company, business...) so the execution of the judgment is prolonged.

Defendants in the Viet A case.

When there is a dispute over seized property, the court's resolution is not consistent. In some places, the court accepts and resolves the dispute; in other places, it does not accept the dispute with the reason that "the property has been seized in another judgment"...

Some judgments were explained slowly by the Court, and the enforcement agency has repeatedly sent written requests but has not yet received a response, such as the cases of Huynh Thi Huyen Nhu and Tran Thi Hieu...

According to the report, the results of enforcement of judgments to recover assets in corruption and economic cases, despite many efforts, are still low, reaching only 32.53% of the total amount of assets lost and misappropriated.

There are no measures to determine the "path" of the seized property.

The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front identified many causes of limitations and shortcomings, including the current legal system on recovering corrupt and economic assets, which has many problematic regulations that lack synchronization, consistency and feasibility, leading to many different understandings and applications.

Current laws do not have specific measures, guidelines, or regulations to track down assets and determine the "path" of misappropriated assets to clarify the act of concealing their origin.

Asset seizure is only applied when the subject is prosecuted or brought to trial. Before that, even if inspected, examined, audited, or even during the time of prosecution but the defendant has not been prosecuted, it is not applied as a condition for the violator to have time to disperse the assets.

Furthermore, due to the lack of a mechanism for income control and the Law on Property Registration, property declaration also affects the verification and tracing of assets of judgment debtors.

There are no detailed guidelines for the seizure and handling of assets that are capital contributions and shares of individuals and organizations that must execute judgments. There are no clear regulations on the unit that appraises the assets of enterprises, the remaining value of enterprises and the value of the capital contributions of the judgment debtors.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front also stated that most judicial agencies are currently overloaded due to increasing workload.

Major cases with thousands of defendants and victims, tens of thousands of billions of VND to be recovered, and hundreds or thousands of assets to be handled per case, while the current quantity and quality of staff do not meet practical requirements.

Facilities and technical equipment have not yet met the requirements in combating, detecting and handling corruption and position-based crimes, especially corruption crimes in the fields of finance, construction investment, etc.

Besides, anti-corruption measures have not been highly effective, especially the lack of strict management and control over the declaration of assets and income of officials, civil servants and public employees.

Allows the investigating agency to apply emergency measures to freeze accounts

Based on the assessment and comments after supervision, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front recommends that the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Central Steering Committee on anti-corruption and anti-negativity direct and inspect the implementation of Directive 04 on strengthening the Party's leadership in resolving the recovery of lost and misappropriated assets in economic and corruption criminal cases.

Directing the review of contents on organizational activities and staffing of judicial agencies in the new situation.

The National Assembly, the National Assembly Standing Committee, and the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front recommend considering, studying, amending, and supplementing in the direction of allowing the investigation agency to apply emergency measures of temporary detention, temporary suspension of account transactions, temporary seizure of assets/freezing of accounts right from the stage of verifying and handling information about crimes and within a specific period of time before applying the provisions of the current Penal Code.

Along with that, continue to study and institutionalize Party regulations on the mechanism for recovering lost and misappropriated assets without going through conviction procedures; the authority of inspectors and auditors to apply measures to prevent the dissipation of assets when detecting signs of corruption and economic crimes.

Regulations on restricting the use of cash and promoting non-cash payment activities need to be thoroughly and resolutely implemented in all fields.

The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front also proposed to consider studying and supplementing regulations on mechanisms to encourage criminals to voluntarily hand over misappropriated property and voluntarily remedy the damage caused in order to build a unified and feasible legal corridor.

The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front also recommended that the National Assembly and the National Assembly Standing Committee prescribe appropriate remuneration policies and regimes for cadres and civil servants working in asset recovery in corruption and economic cases.

In addition, strengthen supervision, promptly detect and prevent from the beginning violations that cause loss and waste of State assets, especially in the fields of land and credit activities...

Thu Hang