Recently, I saw a few articles reporting that, from July 01, 2020, if the traffic police force asks for money from violators while on duty, they will be forced to resign? Is this regulation correct or not? This is the question Mr. Ho Tan Cuong sent to LawNet for support on February 28, 2020.
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LawNet would like to answer Mr. Cuong’s question as follows:
According to Article 29 of Decree No. 19/2020/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, from July 01, 2020, disciplinary sanctions in the form of forced resignation shall be imposed upon civil servants and public employees committing one of the violations arising from the enforcement of laws on handling of administrative violations, including:
- Retaining violation cases suspected to have criminal signs so that they must be subject to administrative sanctions;
- Forging and falsifying records of administrative violations or documents stating application of administrative sanctions;
- Opposing and obstructing persons performing inspection tasks, threatening or intimidating persons providing information and documents to inspection authorities or inspection teams, and causing trouble to inspection activities;
- Abusing positions and powers to harass, demand or receive money or property of violators; tolerating violators, screening them from administrative sanctions and constraining them from exercising their rights when imposing administrative sanctions.
Thus, according to the above regulation, it can be seen that from July 01, 2020, any official or public employee who, when enforcing the law on handling administrative violations, harasses or extorts money or property from the violator will be forced to resign.
However, the provisions of Decree No. 19/2020/NĐ-CP only apply to those with the authority to sanction and make records of administrative violations who are officials, public employees. As for the people's armed forces (including police, and secret police), this regulation will not apply but will have separate regulations. Specifically, according to Clause 3 Article 30 of Decree No. 19/2020/NĐ-CP:
3. Administrative actions or sanctions imposed upon persons having competence in sanctioning and making records of administrative violations in the People's Army, the People's Police and people doing ciphering work on the basis of requirements and proposals included in inspection conclusions shall be subject to relevant laws while administrative actions or sanctions imposed upon those in Military authorities or units who are not officers, professional military servicemen, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, defense workers or national defense public employees; people in Public Security authorities or units that are not officers, non-commissioned officers, conscripts, police workers; people in ciphering organizations who do not do ciphering activities shall be subject to the provisions of this Decree.
Thus, the people's armed forces, including traffic police officers and soldiers etc. will not be within the scope of Decree No. 19/2020/NĐ-CP. Therefore, the regulation about forcing people to resign if they solicit money from violators will not apply to these subjects. Disciplinary action against traffic police, the People's Public Security force and the People's Army will be carried out according to separate regulations.
Nguyen Trinh
- Key word:
- Decree No. 19/2020/NĐ-CP
