Godok RUU Baru, MA Vietnam Proposal Pidana Prison Maximum For Naughty Teens Reduced

Illustration. (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Vietnamese Supreme Court (MA) proposed a Draft Law (RUU) to reduce the maximum prison sentence imposed on minors to 15 years from the previous 18 years.

The proposal is one of the points listed in the Underage Justice Bill recently issued by the Supreme Court with a series of policies designed to further guarantee the interests of teenage actors and create opportunities to correct their mistakes.

Quoting Antara, based on Vietnam's Criminal Code (KUHP) in 2015, which was revised in 2017, violators aged between 16 and under 18 years and who were sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty would be sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in prison.

As for those aged between 14 and under 16, the maximum prison sentence is nine years, compared to the current sentence of 12 years.

The threat of imprisonment for a maximum of 15 years and nine years also applies to minors who commit more than one crime and are subject to imprisonment as a joint sentence.

In addition, based on the bill, the scope of application of temporary detention of teenage perpetrators will be narrowed.

The temporary detention will only be applied to defendants who are between the age of 14 and under 16 and commit very serious crimes.

As well as for those aged between 16 and under 18 and committing very serious crimes intentionally or very serious crimes.

Another important content of the bill is the provisions regarding the transfer of minors who commit criminal acts but are not subject to criminal liability examinations.

It did not stop there, the bill mandates education in correctional institutions which are currently being applied as judicial actions to be converted into the most stringent transfer measure.

Two diversion measures, namely reprimands and education at the level of communication, kelurahan or municipality will be maintained.

Community-based reconciliation actions will be separated into two measures, namely apologizing to the victim and providing compensation for the damage.