Recently, the Council of Judges of the Supreme People's Court issued Resolution 01/2018/NQ-HDTP guiding the 2015 Criminal Code on conditional early release from prison. The resolution includes explanations of the cases where offenders are considered first-time offenders.
Article table of contents
To be specific, at Clause 2, Article 2 of Resolution 01/2018/NQ-HDTP stipulates the cases considered as first-time offenses if:
- The offender has not committed any offense before;- The offender has committed the act but has been exempted from criminal liability;- The offender has committed the act but has been subjected to educational measures at a reformatory school;- The offender has been convicted but is considered to have no criminal record.
The factor of a first-time offense is regarded as an important basis for determining mitigating circumstances for the offender (Clause 1, Article 51), applied by the Court to decide the penalty below the lowest level of the penalty framework according to Clause 2, Article 54, and as one of the conditions for considering conditional parole for those serving imprisonment sentences for serious offenses, very serious offenses, or particularly serious offenses as per Article 66, Article 166 of the Criminal Code 2015.
Resolution 01/2018/NQ-HDTP officially took effect from June 9, 2018.
