Proposal to abolish death penalty for 8 crimes

According to the Ministry of Public Security, the 8 years of implementation of the Penal Code have contributed significantly to social management, crime prevention and combat, maintaining security, order and social safety, and protecting the interests of organizations, the State and citizens. However, the provisions of the Code have revealed many difficulties and inadequacies, including the provisions on the death penalty.

In practice, some crimes are so dangerous to society that it is not necessary to maintain the death penalty. In addition, the court does not apply the death penalty to these crimes, for example, the crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the People's government, the crime of sabotaging the material and technical facilities of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; the crime of producing and trading in counterfeit medicines, disease prevention... or it is rarely applied (such as the crime of embezzlement of property, bribery...).

Although the death penalty is not applied to people with terminal illnesses (terminal cancer, HIV infection progressing to AIDS, opportunistic infections, poor prognosis), they still have to be detained and receive intensive treatment to await execution, but there are no regulations not to apply the death penalty, or not to execute the death penalty for these subjects.

The current Penal Code specifically stipulates the statute of limitations for execution of death sentences. In cases of execution of the death penalty, the statute of limitations is 20 years, but the code does not stipulate that after the statute of limitations for execution of the death penalty expires, the person sentenced to death can be transferred to another penalty such as life imprisonment, fixed-term imprisonment or release; there is no procedure for transferring the penalty...

In the draft revised Penal Code, the Ministry of Public Security proposed to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without parole (still ensuring the isolation of criminals from social life) for 5 crimes. Specifically, the crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the People's government (Article 109); sabotaging the material and technical facilities of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Article 114); producing and trading in counterfeit medicines and disease prevention products (Article 194); illegally transporting narcotics (Article 250); undermining peace and waging aggressive wars (Article 421). In addition, it proposed to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without parole for a number of crimes, including: Espionage (Article 110); embezzlement of property (Article 353); bribery (Article 354).

The draft law also amends a number of other provisions related to the death penalty. Specifically, it adds a provision that the court may suspend the execution of the death sentence for 2 years for the convicted person at the time of the death sentence. This provision ensures humanity, is consistent with reality, and resolves a number of problems and inadequacies regarding the above-mentioned time limit.

Many opinions say that it is necessary to consider more comprehensively, based on theory and practice, some particularly serious crimes. First of all, with the crime of illegal transportation of narcotics, in the current context, eliminating the death penalty will greatly affect the effectiveness of the fight against crime. In fact, many cases do not have enough grounds to prosecute for illegal drug trafficking, but are only handled under the crime of illegal transportation. If the death penalty is abolished for this crime, will the alternative punishment be enough to deter and meet practical requirements? Therefore, some delegates proposed to retain the death penalty for the crime of illegal transportation of narcotics.

Typically, the Ministry of Public Security has just dismantled a production line of 1.4 tons of synthetic drugs, worth about 1,400 billion VND. If the death penalty is not retained for drug trafficking, the deterrent effect will not be strong enough, especially with the large amount of drugs that is on the rise. Similarly, what if the death penalty is abolished for the crimes of embezzlement and bribery, which are currently in a fierce phase of fighting corruption?

It is expected that in October 2025, the draft revised Penal Code will be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration, comments, and approval according to shortened procedures at the 10th session of the 15th National Assembly.

Source: https://baoangiang.com.vn/de-xuat-bo-phat-tu-hinh-8-toi-danh-a419391.html