In accordance with the Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents, the Ministry of Public Security has submitted the draft amended Penal Code to the Government.

According to the ministry, certain provisions in the current Penal Code still present difficulties and inconsistencies in practical application. Specifically, there is no legal mechanism to exclude criminal liability in cases involving the testing of new technologies or business models designed to foster innovation, as encouraged by Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW.

As such, the revised draft introduces a provision exempting criminal liability for experimental activities involving new technologies that serve innovation and creativity, in line with Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW.

The Ministry of Public Security also proposed expanding the types of penalties to better support the realities of crime prevention and control. The draft introduces a new principal punishment: life imprisonment without the possibility of sentence reduction, and two new supplementary penalties: a ban on entering Vietnam, and electronic monitoring.

According to the draft, Article 60 of the current Penal Code outlines the statute of limitations for enforcing criminal judgments. Once this period expires, the convicted individual is no longer required to serve their sentence. For death penalty cases, the statute of limitations is 20 years.

However, the law does not provide guidance on what happens after that period, such as whether the sentence should be converted to life imprisonment, fixed-term imprisonment, or whether the individual should be released. There is also no existing procedure for converting the sentence.

In practice, 17 individuals sentenced to death have been detained for more than 15 years without execution, leading to confusion among authorities about whether to apply Article 55 of the 1999 Penal Code or Article 60 of the current code - and whether these individuals are entitled to the benefit of the expiration period.

Therefore, the Ministry has proposed an amendment to Article 60 to clearly specify the legal process after the expiration of the statute of limitations on death sentences. Under the proposal, once the statute of limitations ends, the death sentence would be converted to life imprisonment, either with or without the possibility of sentence reduction. The amendment would also introduce specific procedures for this conversion.

In addition, the Ministry suggested changes to other regulations related to the death penalty, including a provision allowing courts to postpone execution for two years from the date of sentencing.

The Ministry argues that this policy ensures humanitarian considerations, aligns with current practices, and resolves procedural gaps regarding timelines.

In reality, even the fastest death penalty executions take around 16 months for cases without appeals and 30 months when appeals are filed. Therefore, a two-year suspension is considered appropriate. During this time, convicts have the opportunity to remedy damages. For example, those convicted of embezzlement can repay three-quarters of the misappropriated assets, which could allow their sentence to be converted to life imprisonment.

T. Nhung