Instructions for implementing the President's Decision on amnesty in 2025

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh - Chairman of the Amnesty Advisory Council signed and issued Instruction No. 21/HD-HDTVĐX on the implementation of Decision No. 266/2025/QD-CTN dated March 3, 2025 of the President on amnesty in 2025.

The special amnesty advisory council provides specific guidance on subjects, conditions, procedures, and processes for considering special amnesty in 2025.

Specifically, subjects considered for amnesty include: Persons sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment or life imprisonment that has been reduced to fixed-term imprisonment who are serving their prison sentences in prisons or detention camps (hereinafter referred to as prisoners); Persons whose prison sentences are temporarily suspended.

Regarding some provisions in Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2025, 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 2025 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 (hereinafter referred to as Decree No. 52).

According to the provisions of Point c, Clause 1, Article 18 of Decree No. 118/2024/ND-CP dated September 30, 2024 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Enforcement of Criminal Judgments, the classification of the execution of the first quarter prison sentence is on the last day of February.

Therefore, by the time the prisons and detention camps meet to consider and propose amnesty, the prisoners must have had enough quarters to be classified as fair or good, and from March 1 to the date of the meeting to consider and propose amnesty, the detention camp must have commented and evaluated the results of serving the prison sentence as fair or good.

For prisoners whose prison sentences are temporarily suspended or who are subject to compulsory medical treatment measures and have returned to prison or detention camps 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 that during the period of temporary suspension or the period of compulsory medical treatment measures, they have strictly complied with the provisions of the law.

2. Time served in prison is the time spent in detention, temporary detention, serving a prison sentence in a prison or temporary detention camp, excluding time spent on bail, deferred, temporarily suspended, and time spent reducing the prison sentence.

The time spent under compulsory medical treatment during the investigation, prosecution, trial, and execution of the sentence is also counted as time spent in prison. The time spent in prison is reduced and deducted from the remaining time spent in prison.

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:

- 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 decided by the Court to be exempted from the fine or payment of court fees, are also eligible as prescribed in Point c, Clause 1, Article 3 of the Decision on amnesty in 2025.

- 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 Decision on amnesty in 2025, 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 maintenance obligation, the maintenance obligation must be completely performed according to the judgment or decision of the Court or the maintenance obligation has been performed once, confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the person resides or the civil enforcement agency handling the case. If the maintenance obligation has only been partially performed or the maintenance obligation has not been performed but there is an agreement or confirmation from the legal representative of the victim or the person receiving maintenance that the maintenance obligation does not have to be continued or is not required to be performed according to the judgment or decision of the Court and confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the person resides or the civil enforcement agency handling the case, the maintenance obligation is also considered to have been performed.

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 2025, and in the judgment or decision of the Court, the responsibility for compensation for damages and other civil obligations is assigned to the parents or legal representative, there must be documents to prove that the parents or legal representative have completed the compensation for damages or other civil obligations, including: Receipts, invoices, documents showing this or the decision to suspend the enforcement of the judgment by 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.

- 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 2025, this is the case prescribed in Clause 3, Article 4 of Decree No. 52.

4. In cases where a person has made great contributions during the time of serving a prison sentence, is suffering from a serious illness, is frequently ill and cannot take care of himself, has a particularly difficult family situation and is the sole breadwinner in the family as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 3 of the Decision on special amnesty in 2025, these are cases prescribed in Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7, Article 4 of Decree No. 52.