Hanoi-Vietnam: What are the surrender and voluntary confession?

13:20, 11/07/2024

Surrender and voluntary confession are among the mitigating circumstances for the offender to be considered for a reduction of criminal liability. These concepts are guided according to Official Dispatch 81/2002/TANDTC of the Supreme People's Court of Vietnam as follows:

	Surrender	Voluntary Confession
	- It is the fact that the person who commits the criminal acts takes the initiative to present himself and declare at the functional agency to be considered and handled under the provisions of law; - This is a circumstance to consider mitigating criminal liability.
Definition	It is a criminal act that has been known and discovered by someone, and the offender knows that it cannot be avoided, so he should go to the competent agency to present it.	It is to admit guilt and confess their criminal acts, the criminal acts have not been detected by anyone.
Discern	- The criminal act has been discovered, known by many people, denounced and is being clarified by the investigating authorities, even though the suspect may not have been officially criminally prosecuted. - The act of surrendering shows that the person committing the offense has a benevolent mindset, has recognized his or her mistakes, shows signs of repentance, repentance, wishes to settle the case under law, and takes the initiative to take responsibility for his or her wrongdoing.	- Offenders who do not confess may be detected after a long time or may even escape the crime because no one finds out. - Confessing is more appreciated than surrendering because it has not been detected but still actively admits guilt, creating many favorable conditions for agencies conducting proceedings.

Despite the above distinction, according to Inter-ministerial Circular 05/TTLN dated June 2, 1990, on guiding the implementation of policies for offenders who turn themselves in, both surrendering and voluntary confession are considered as voluntary confession and are applied in considering the reduction of criminal responsibility. Official Dispatch 81/2002/TANDTC provides the following guidance:

- If the offender self-admits their crime and discloses their criminal actions before anyone has discovered their crime, the mitigating circumstance of "voluntary confession" stipulated in Clause 1, Article 46 of the 1999 Criminal Code is applied to the offender.- If the offender's crime has been known by someone else, and knowing they cannot avoid it, they report to the competent authority, then Clause 2, Article 46 of the 1999 Criminal Code is applied to consider reducing criminal responsibility for the offender.

In this case, if the offender sincerely confesses, shows repentance, or has other actions under circumstances considered mitigating criminal responsibility, they will receive the corresponding mitigating circumstances stipulated in Clause 1, Article 46 of the 1999 Criminal Code.

The Criminal Procedure Code 2015 (effective from January 1, 2018) provides specific definitions of surrender and voluntary confession as follows:

- Voluntary confession means that a perpetrator voluntarily gives statements on his offences to authorities prior to the happening of such offences or after the exposure of the perpetrator.

- Surrender refers to a perpetrator, after exposed, voluntarily turning himself in and giving statements on his offences to competent authorities.

>> CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN VIETNAMESE

0 lượt xem

- This translation is generated by OpenAI's GPT-4o model;
- The legal regulations in this article are according to Vietnamese Law;
- This English translation is for reference purposes only and not a definitive translation of the original Vietnamese texts;
- Articles may be compiled from a variety of sources;
- Applicable Terms may have expired at the time you are reading;
- If you have any questions about the copyright of the article, please contact us via email banquyen@lawnet.vn