National Assembly deputies press buttons to vote on the amendments to the 2015 Penal Code (Photo: VNA)
Under the law, persons aged full 14 to under 16 will have to bear penal liability for very serious crimes or extremely serious crimes of intentionally inflicting injury on or causing harm to the health of other persons, rapes, and kidnapping in order to appropriate property, but not for less serious or serious crimes related to the three charges.
The law narrows down the scale for penal liability of defenders for non-denunciation of crimes. Specifically, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, offspring, grandchild, sibling, wife or husband of an offender as well as the defender will not bear penal liability for failing to denounce offenders’ crimes, excepting for crimes related to national security or extremely serious crimes.
The law also adds a new article on violations of regulations on multi-level business, aiming to put criminal settlements on illegal multi-level business activities. Accordingly, the highest punishment for the crime is VND5 billion or five years in prison.
With 89.41 percent of votes, the parliament also approved a resolution defining that the enforcement of the amended 2015 Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law on Organisation of Criminal Investigation Agency, and Laws on Custody and Temporary Detention, will start from January 1st, 2018.
Meanwhile, the dates mentioned in regulations stated in the NA Resolution 110/2015/QH13 on November 27th, 2017 on the implementation of the 2015 Penal Code, will be changed from “July 1st, 2016” to “January 1st, 2018”, and “January 1st, 2019” to “January 1st, 2020”./.