What's a criminal record? What's the difference between a criminal record and a criminal record?

1. What is a previous conviction? What's a previous offence?

The current law has no documents specifying these two concepts.However, in the past, Resolution 01-HDTP dated 18/10/1990 of the Judicial Council of the Supreme People's Court (expired) mentioned this issue as follows:

“A person whose sentence has been expunged is not considered to have a previous conviction. Persons who have been disciplined or administratively sanctioned (i.e., who have not been disciplined or administratively sanctioned) shall not be deemed to have previous offences. For handling decisions of agencies, unions or social organizations, which the law does not prescribe a time limit for being considered as not having been handled, if from the date of issuing the handling decisions to the date of committing the crime for more than 1 year, they are no longer considered to have a previous offence. For handling decisions of agencies, unions or social organizations which the law does not stipulate a time limit for being treated as unprocessed, if from the date of issuing the handling decision to the date of committing the crime for more than 1 year, it shall not be considered a previous offence."

Thus, through the above provision, it is possible to understand:

"Previous offence" means the situation where a person who has been disciplined, administratively sanctioned, has not been disciplined, administratively sanctioned or has not met the time limit conditions is considered not to have been administratively sanctioned. In other words, previous offences are set due to incurring administrative responsibilities.

Similarly, a "previous conviction" is the status of a person who has committed a violation of the law, is set due to incurring criminal liability, has been convicted but has not been expunged his/her criminal record. The previous conviction is set due to incurring criminal liability.

2. Time limit for expungement of previous convictions and previous offences

If the offenders have already been convicted or have their criminal records expunged, they will be considered as having no previous criminal records or convictions.

03 cases were expunged under the provisions of the Criminal Code 2015 of Vietnam including:

- Of course, criminal record expungement (Article 70 BLHS)

- Deletion of convictions by court decision (Article 71 BLHS)

- Deletion of criminal convictions in special cases (Article 72 BLHS)

Regarding the calculation of the time limit for expungement of criminal records, Article 73 BLHS stipulates as follows:

- The period after which a conviction may be expunged specified in Article 70 and Article 71 hereof depends on the primary sentence.

- If the convict who has not had the conviction expunged commits a new crime which leads to a conviction under an effective judgment, the period after which the conviction may be expunged shall start over from the day on which the primary sentence has been served or the end of the probation period of the new judgment, or from the deadline for execution of the new judgment.

- If the convict has committed more than one crime and one of which is naturally eligible for expungement, one of which is eligible for expungement under a court's decision, the court shall decide expungement according to the period specified in Article 71 hereof.

- A person who is exempt from serving the rest of his/her penalty shall also be considered as having completely served the penalty.

A person who has not been treated as an administrative violation shall be deemed to have no criminal record.

Article 7 of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations 2012 stipulates that the time limit shall be deemed not to have been handled for administrative violations against individuals and organizations as follows:

- 06 months from the date of serving the warning sanction decision without recidivism;

- 01 year from the date of complete execution of the decision on administrative sanction without recidivism;

- From the date of expiry of the statute of limitations for execution of decisions on sanctioning administrative violations without recidivism.

In addition, for individuals subject to administrative sanctions, the time limit shall be deemed not to have been administratively signed as follows:

- 02 years from the date of completion of serving the decision on application of administrative handling measures without recidivism;

- 01 year from the date of expiry of the statute of limitations for execution of decisions to apply administrative handling measures without recidivism.

3. Some differences between previous convictions and previous offences

In fact, there are few cases of confusion between the two concepts of previous convictions and previous offences. Here is a breakdown of some basic differences between these two concepts as follows:

Above is some sharing related to criminal records, criminal records based on the provisions of the current law, hopefully the article brings useful information for you to read.

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