According to some opinion in the conference named “Some basic orientations of the Criminal Code project (revised)”, there were 7 crimes that would not be applied the highest penalty – death penalty.
Whereby, the crimes that offered to annul the death penalty include: Robbery; Destruction of work, facility, equipment important for national security; Insubordination; Surrendering to enemy; Disruption of peace, provocation of war of aggression; Crimes against humanity; War crimes.
This was one of remarkable things in the conference “Some basic orientations of the Criminal Code project (revised)” that the Judicial Committee of National Assembly held in Hoa Binh in March 24th.
Deputy Minister of Justice Dinh Trung Tung said one of the biggest orientations of the draft Criminal Code (amended) this time was limiting the scope of application of death penalty.
“Only apply death penalty to a few cases of extremely serious crimes that has savage manner, infringe human life (as murder; murder to robbery; murder and rape…); extremely threat to the social security and development (some narcotic substance crimes)…” – Mr. Tung said.
Beside the regulations about not apply the death penalty to people who were under age of 18, women who were pregnant or raising children under 36 months as present, the draft of Criminal Code (revised) had add the people aged 70 or older to be the object that not be applied the death penalty.
At the conference, there were also some opinions that not agreed with the offer stated above. Dantri newspaper quoted Mr. Nguyen Tat Vien – member of Central Justice Reform Steering Committee, the current Criminal Code has 22 crimes were applied death penalty, if we just remove 7 crimes, the crimes that applied death penalty were still too much.
“Death penalty means depriving the right to live, one of the most important rights, from a person. As a result, if we apply the death penalty for a person, we have removed a chance to be reformed of that person and cut the ability to fix mistrial that can happen” – Mr.Vien said. He also said that narrowing the scope of applying death penalty was strongly necessary.
Agreed with Mr.Vien, Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court – Nguyen Son said that during the negotiation and commenting of this draft of the Criminal Code, there were opinions agreed that we should remove death penalty of some more criminals.
The most important thing in solving criminals, in Mr.Do opinion, was towards the direction of goodness. Mr.Do gave an example about drug trafficking case in Quang Ninh that had just been brought to trial recently. Lieutenant-General Tran Van Do – Former Chief Justice of the Central Military Court, former Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court said that if we thought we could reduce the crimes through such repression and tough penalty, that thought was wrong.
“According to the regulations, there are 60 cases that applied death penalty. But, in fact, the Courts just decide to apply the death penalty to 30 cases” – Mr.Do said.
Delegates in the conferrance also agreed that keeping death penalty for some crimes like corruption-related and possession, transportation of narcotic substances because these crimes should be severed punishing. In fact, these crimes were still going on very complicatedly so it was necessary to take severed punishment measures.
Source: Doi song phap luat
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