VietNamNet Bridge – The 12th National Assembly’s Standing Committee opened its 15th session in Hanoi on Dec. 23 to give opinions on six bills to be submitted to the 5th NA session, which is scheduled for May 2009.

Photo: VOV

The draft legislation to be assessed included the Criminal Code and the Judicial Records, Urban Planning, State Compensation, Public Debt Management and Representative Offices in Foreign Countries, said Trong.

All of the draft laws were debated at the 12th National Assembly year-end plenary session.

Trong said the Standing Committee would also contribute ideas to the draft Ordinance on Legal Costs and Court Fees, and on clause 10 of the Ordinance on Population, as well as set the National Assembly’s agenda for next year.

Death penalty

Standing Committee members focused on amendments to the Criminal Code at yesterday’s working session presided by National Assembly vice chairman Uong Chu Luu.

The members’ discussion focused on limiting the number of offences punishable by death and criminalising the establishment of or participation in organised crime, speculation, tax evasion and fraud.

The chairwoman of the Social Affairs Committee, Truong Thi Mai, emphasised that revisions were needed to deal with urgent practical issues, and deputies had contributed many ideas for limiting the number of crimes subject to the death penalty, she said.

National Assembly Vice Chairman Huynh Ngoc Son said, although the number of offences that carry the death penalty should be reduced, the reduction needed to be carefully considered.

The death penalty for serious crimes against national security and defence should remain in place, he argued.

The chairman of the National Defence and Security Committee, Le Quang Binh, countered, however, that any reduction did not mean that extreme crimes would not still be punishable by death.

The chairman of the Ombudsman Committee, Tran The Vuong, said that uniform criteria for crimes subject to the death penalty were needed. Many Standing Committee members agreed that the death penalty should remain for crimes such as misappropriation of State assets and for accepting bribes, destroying crucial public works or other transgressions against national security.

Judicial records

During its afternoon meeting, Standing Committee members agreed that the Law on Judicial Records was needed to ensure the right of individuals to appeal criminal sentences or civil judgments and would create conditions for people to reverse convictions and re-integrate into the community.

The law would create a legal basis for compiling a national database for judicial records, suited to the nation’s process of judicial reform, to creating a more professional judicial system, and to international integration.

The chairman of the National Assembly’s Legal Committee, Nguyen Van Thuan, said that judicial records needed to include previous arrests as well as convictions.

Deputy Ksor Phuoc said that such a system of criminal records would also help employers and administrative agencies prevent crime, as there were many people who have been arrested for minor burglaries multiple times, but never dragged into court and convicted.

Phuoc proposed weighting previous arrests on scale, but only for those who had never been convicted.

Deputy Minister of Justice Dinh Trung Tung noted that, in some countries, criminal culpability, even down to traffic violations, was decided by the courts. In Viet Nam, however, such decisions could be made by administrative agencies and even individual officials.

In light of this, Tung said, keeping tabs on and updating and managing information on punishments and administrative fines nationwide was currently impracticable, so that expansion of the system of judicial records to include previous arrests was infeasible and unnecessary to the goal of reforming the management of judicial records.

However, the head of the National Assembly’s Justice Committee, Le Thi Thu Ba, said that, when domestic or foreign agencies needed to know someone’s judicial record, e.g., to administer procedure for entry to or exit from the country, they were always interested in previous arrests and sentencing.

Ba said the scope of judicial records should extend to prohibiting individuals who had declared bankruptcy by a court from management jobs or from establishing and managing enterprises and co-operatives.

The session is scheduled to finish on Saturday with the committee hearing the Government’s review of its implementation of the Personal Income Tax Law as the last item on its agenda.

(Source: Viet Nam News)