Is it feasible to restrict travel contact with juvenile offenders?

Focus on protecting minors as victims

Continuing the 7th Session program, on the morning of June 21, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Law on Juvenile Justice.

Speaking, National Assembly Deputy Le Thanh Hoan (Thanh Hoa delegation) said that many countries have applied the method of redirection and restorative justice. The redirection is not intended to ignore the law and justice, but is considered a new measure to maintain justice.

According to the delegate, the draft law has focused on protecting minors as victims. However, the provisions on protecting the rights of “victims” or “victims”, including minors and adults, are not adequate.

It is necessary to avoid the tendency to ensure the best interests of juvenile offenders which sometimes exceeds the necessary level and may infringe on the basic rights of other individuals in society, especially direct victims of abuse.

Therefore, the delegate proposed to add to Article 5 the requirement that measures for handling diversion outside the community must be agreed upon and unified with the victim.

Regarding the authority to apply the diversion measure, in Article 53, the delegate proposed to implement according to option 2, that is, the application of the diversion measure is only implemented by the court, but not only by the investigation agency or the prosecutor's office, but the court has the full right to consider and decide. Because Vietnam has a very different criminal policy and criminal procedure compared to other countries.

National Assembly Delegate Le Thanh Hoan.

Basically agreeing with the Government's submission and the Judicial Committee's review report on the draft Law on Juvenile Justice, National Assembly Deputy Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan (Binh Duong delegation) said that, in order to ensure consistency in the policy of handling and redirecting juvenile offenders, it is recommended to add to Article 37 of the draft law the group of people from 12 to under 14 years old as the subjects to be subject to the handling and redirection measures.

"Because, through research, there are 2 out of 12 measures for handling diversion: education at communes, wards, and towns, education at reform schools stipulated in Clause 10, Clause 12, Article 36 of the draft Law. Compared with the Law on Handling Administrative Violations, there is still a lack of consistency and unity in specific handling measures," said Ms. Xuan.

According to the delegate, if the draft law omits subjects from 12 years old to under 14 years old to apply 12 redirection measures, it is very dangerous.

According to the report, the situation of people under 18 years old committing crimes and victims in criminal cases in 2021 shows that the crime situation committed by minors is increasingly complicated, serious in nature and often focuses on crimes such as theft, robbery, crimes against human life and health, and drug crimes.

More specifically, the group of law violators aged 12 and above is showing signs of increasing. Therefore, delegates proposed to add this group to the policy of handling and redirecting law violators to minors.

Regarding the principle of applying the diversion measure, National Assembly Deputy Nguyen Thanh Sang (Ho Chi Minh City delegation) said that Clause 4, Article 40 stipulates that the diversion measure shall not be applied if at the time of consideration the offender is 18 years old.

However, delegates said that the above regulation is not consistent with criminal policy for minors.

Because at the time they committed the crime, they were minors, and the time of applying the diversion measure was up to the prosecuting agencies. Now, if we slow down and deny the minors the benefit, it is not appropriate. "If there is not enough time, it is appropriate to apply the shortened procedure for this case," said Mr. Sang.

Help juvenile offenders correct their mistakes

National Assembly Deputy Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (Hai Duong delegation) said that building a system of legal regulations on justice for minors is very consistent with the general trend of the world and demonstrates the humanity and progress of the Vietnamese legal system.

However, given the current trend of juvenile crime, delegates said that careful consideration should be given to the development of each provision of this law.

"To ensure that when the law is enacted, it must ensure humanity, create conditions for juvenile offenders to recognize, overcome, and correct their mistakes, but must still have educational and strict deterrent effects," said Ms. Nga.

According to reports from authorities, the juvenile crime situation is currently a rather painful issue. Many cases are caused by minors who commit crimes, with the methods and consequences being extremely serious, some cases causing social uproar.

National Assembly Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga.

Ms. Nga said that in the face of such reality, if the law does not have appropriate, strict measures and penalties to ensure fairness, it will make people angry and lose faith. It even leads to a situation where many young people take advantage of humanitarian policies for minors to entice, incite, and hire them to commit crimes, and this is very worrying.

Regarding the measures for handling diversion stipulated in Article 36 of the draft. Article 36 stipulates 12 measures for handling diversion, of which 3 measures, according to delegates, need to be carefully considered for feasibility. These are the measures of "prohibiting contact with people at risk of causing minors to commit new crimes", "restricting travel hours" and "prohibiting going to places at risk of causing minors to commit new crimes".

“These measures sound very reasonable, but in reality, to put them into practice effectively is extremely difficult. We cannot have the human resources to monitor who minors meet, where they go, and at what times every day, while according to the draft, these measures are applied for at least 3 months to 1 year,” Ms. Nga analyzed.

And for these measures to be feasible and effective, according to the delegate, they must be clearly regulated. Especially the preparation of human resources and equipment to serve the task of supervising the implementation of measures to handle and redirect juvenile offenders.

Explaining and clarifying concerns about the redirection regulations, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court Nguyen Hoa Binh said that with the expansion of the age range to 12-14 years old, Mr. Hoa Binh said that according to the current Penal Code, 12 to 14 years old is not a crime, committing anything is not a crime.

Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court Nguyen Hoa Binh

With the conditions applied, one of the conditions is that it must be voluntary.

“The goal of redirection is that children must be voluntary and see their shortcomings to sincerely correct them, not forced. In the case that children are faced with two choices, one is that they are suspected of committing a crime and are being charged or agree to redirection; the other is to agree to a normal investigation, prosecution, trial and trial, the law will give them a choice, I believe that both parents and children will choose the redirection option.

Allowing a change of direction is an opportunity given by society and the law. If the children do not voluntarily correct their shortcomings, the normal investigation, prosecution and trial process will be activated," said Mr. Binh.

Regarding the ban on going to places and contacting people at risk of committing new crimes, Mr. Binh said that it is necessary to clarify how to ban and what time frame to ban, depending on the violation of the children.

“If you violate or steal at the supermarket, you are banned from going to the supermarket. If you violate child molestation, you are banned from going to places with children. If you violate drug laws, you are banned from going to places with complicated drug problems, nightclubs, or contacting such people,” Mr. Binh said, adding that this depends on the children’s behavior, so it is impossible to say what is banned .

Source: https://www.nguoiduatin.vn/han-che-tiep-xuc-di-lai-voi-nguoi-chua-thanh-nien-pham-toi-co-kha-thi-a669393.html