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Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, Chairman of the Amnesty Advisory Council, signed Instruction No. 88/HD-HDTVĐX to implement Decision No. 758/2024/QD-CTN dated July 30, 2024 of the President on amnesty in 2024.
Persons sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment that has been reduced to fixed-term imprisonment and are serving their prison sentences at prisons, temporary detention camps, or criminal enforcement agencies of district-level police (hereinafter referred to as prisoners); persons whose prison sentences are temporarily suspended are eligible for special pardon consideration.
According to the newly issued Guidelines, the subjects eligible for amnesty in 2024 include:
1. A person sentenced to a fixed-term prison term or life imprisonment that has been reduced to a fixed-term prison term and is serving his/her prison term at a prison, temporary detention camp, or criminal enforcement agency of the district-level police (hereinafter referred to as a prisoner).
2. People whose prison sentence is temporarily suspended.
Regarding some provisions in Article 3 of Decision No. 758/2024/QD-CTN on amnesty in 2024, the Amnesty Advisory Council provides specific instructions as follows:
1- The provision at Point a, Clause 1, Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024 is the provision at Point a, Clause 1, Article 11 of the Amnesty Law and has been detailed in Clause 1, Article 4 of Decree No. 52/2019/ND-CP dated June 14, 2019 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Amnesty Law (Decree No. 52).
According to Point c, Clause 1, Article 18 of Decree No. 133/2020/ND-CP dated November 9, 2020 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Enforcement of Criminal Judgments, the second quarter of imprisonment sentence execution is classified on May 25, and the third quarter of imprisonment sentence execution is classified on August 25. Therefore, by the time the prisons, detention camps, and criminal enforcement agencies of the district-level police meet to consider and propose amnesty, the prisoners must have had enough quarters to be classified as fair or good and the following period from May 26, 2024 to the date of the meeting to consider and propose amnesty must be commented on and evaluated by the prisons, detention camps, and criminal enforcement agencies of the district-level police as having classified as fair or good.
After the results of the third quarter of 2024 are available, prisons, detention camps, and criminal enforcement agencies of the district-level police must review and compare them with the list of prisoners proposed for amnesty and promptly request the direct superior agency to report to the Standing Committee of the Amnesty Advisory Council for consideration and request the Amnesty Advisory Council to remove from the list of proposed amnesty prisoners who are not classified as good or fair in the third quarter of 2024.
For prisoners who have been temporarily suspended from serving their prison sentences or have been subject to compulsory medical treatment measures and have returned to prisons, detention camps, or criminal judgment enforcement agencies of district-level police to continue serving their sentences, in addition to the quarters when they have been classified as good or excellent during their prison sentences, they must also be confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where they reside, the military unit assigned to manage them during the temporary suspension period, or the medical facility that provided treatment during the period of compulsory medical treatment measures that they have strictly complied with the provisions of the law during the period of temporary suspension or the period of compulsory medical treatment measures.
2- The time spent serving a prison sentence is the time spent in detention, temporary detention, serving a prison sentence in a prison, temporary detention camp, or criminal enforcement agency of the district-level police, excluding the time spent on bail, deferred, temporarily suspended, and reduced time spent serving a prison sentence. The time spent under compulsory medical treatment during the investigation, prosecution, trial, and execution of the sentence is also counted toward the time spent serving a prison sentence.
The time of reduction of the prison sentence is calculated to be deducted from the remaining prison sentence.
3- Regarding the provisions on implementing additional penalties such as fines, payment of court fees, performance of obligations to return property, compensation for damages, and other civil obligations:
a- Prisoners or people who are temporarily suspended from serving their prison sentences and have not completed the additional penalty of a fine or payment of court fees, but are exempted from the fine or payment of court fees by the court, are also eligible as prescribed in Point c, Clause 1, Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024.
b- Prisoners or people whose prison sentences are temporarily suspended have completed their obligations to return property, compensate for damages, and other civil obligations as prescribed in Point d, Clause 1, Article 3 of the 2024 Amnesty Decision, which is one of the cases prescribed in Clause 2, Article 4 of Decree No. 52.
In addition, the following cases are also considered to have completed compensation for damages and other civil obligations:
In case of having to perform the alimony obligation, the alimony obligation must be completely performed according to the judgment or decision of the Court or the alimony obligation must have been performed once, as confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the person resides or the civil enforcement agency handling the case.
If the alimony obligation has only been partially fulfilled or the alimony obligation has not been fulfilled but there is an agreement or confirmation from the legal representative of the victim or the person receiving alimony that the alimony obligation does not have to be continued or is not required to be fulfilled according to the court's judgment or decision and is confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the person resides or the civil enforcement agency handling the case, it is also considered that the alimony obligation has been fulfilled.
In case the offender is a person under 18 years old as prescribed in Point d, Clause 3, Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024, and in the judgment or decision of the court, the responsibility for compensation for damages and other civil obligations is assigned to the father, mother or legal representative, there must be documents to prove that the father, mother or legal representative has completed compensation for damages or other civil obligations, including: receipts, invoices, documents showing this or the Decision to suspend the enforcement of the judgment of the Head of the competent civil judgment enforcement agency or the agreement document of the person subject to enforcement or that person's legal representative on not having to perform compensation for damages and other civil obligations according to the judgment or decision of the court, confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the offender resides or the civil judgment enforcement agency handling the case, or other documents and papers showing this.
c- In case a person sentenced to imprisonment has fulfilled part of the obligation to return property, compensate for damages, or other civil obligations, but due to being in particularly difficult economic circumstances, he/she is not yet able to continue to fulfill the remaining part according to the provisions of the law on civil judgment enforcement as prescribed in Point d, Clause 1, Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024, this is the case prescribed in Clause 3, Article 4 of Decree No. 52.
4. Cases of having made great achievements during the time of serving a prison sentence, suffering from a serious illness, being frequently ill and unable to take care of themselves, having particularly difficult family circumstances and being the sole breadwinner in the family as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 3 of the Decision on special amnesty in 2024 are cases prescribed in Clauses 4, 5, 6, and 7, Article 4 of Decree No. 52.
To properly implement the provisions of Article 4 of Decision No. 758/2024/QD-CTN on amnesty in 2024, the Amnesty Advisory Council specifically guides a number of contents as follows:
The basis for determining the cases specified in Clause 8, Article 4 of the 2024 Amnesty Decision is the points, clauses, and articles in the Penal Code that the court applies when deciding on the penalty.
In the case of robbery using weapons as prescribed in Clause 8, Article 4 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024, in addition to the above basis, the provisions of Article 3 of the Law on Management and Use of Weapons, Explosives and Supporting Tools and Clause 1, Article 1 of the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Management and Use of Weapons, Explosives and Supporting Tools shall also be used to determine whether the object used by the offender to commit the crime is a weapon or not.
For cases of repeated robbery, repeated snatching, repeated theft (two times or more) as prescribed in Clause 8, Article 4 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024:
The basis for determining multiple crimes is the number of crimes shown in the verdict and each crime is prosecuted for criminal liability in the same verdict or the Decision part of the verdict applying Point g, Clause 1, Article 48 of the 1999 Penal Code or Point g, Clause 1, Article 52 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017. Cases that are serving a combined sentence of multiple verdicts for the same crime, where each verdict only shows one crime, are still cases of multiple crimes.
The basis for confirming illegal use of narcotics in the case specified in Clause 12, Article 4 of the Decision on amnesty in 2024 is the documents in the prisoner's file and the file of the decision on temporary suspension of the execution of the prison sentence (for those whose prison sentence is temporarily suspended) such as: Verdict; Indictment; documents of the Investigation Agency; test results of the medical agency at the district level or higher; Self-declaration of the prisoner or the person whose prison sentence is temporarily suspended stating the time and number of times he used narcotics...; Health examination certificate of the prison, temporary detention camp, criminal enforcement agency of the district-level police with the signature (or fingerprint) of the prisoner admitting that he has illegally used narcotics; other documents of the prison facility or competent authority determining that the prisoner or the person whose prison sentence is temporarily suspended has ever illegally used narcotics.
Regarding the implementation period, from August 18, 2024 to August 31, 2024, the Interdisciplinary Appraisal Teams will directly visit units and localities to inspect and appraise records and lists of proposed pardons.
From August 22, 2024 to September 7, 2024, the Standing Committee of the Amnesty Advisory Council will compile the dossiers and list and send them to the members of the Amnesty Advisory Council for research and appraisal.
From September 9, 2024 to September 19, 2024, the Standing Committee of the Amnesty Advisory Council and the Supreme People's Court will synthesize the opinions of the members of the Amnesty Advisory Council and prepare documents, a list of people eligible for amnesty, and a list of people ineligible for amnesty to submit to the Advisory Council for review.
From September 23, 2024 to September 25, 2024, the Amnesty Advisory Council will meet to review the amnesty list.
From September 26, 2024 to September 28, 2024, the Standing Committee of the Amnesty Advisory Council will synthesize and complete the amnesty list and submit it to the President for decision.
Hold a press conference to announce the President's Decision on amnesty and early release of prisoners and organize the release of pardoned persons according to the President's Decision on September 30, 2024.
The organization will release people who have been granted amnesty according to the President's Decision on October 1, 2024.
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