What are coercive delivery and forced escort? Entities subject to coercive delivery and forced escort in Vietnam

What are coercive delivery and forced escort? Entities subject to coercive delivery and forced escort in Vietnam (Internet image)

1. What are coercive delivery and forced escort?

According to Article 126 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015, competent procedural authorities and persons can implement measures of coercive delivery, forced escort, property distrainment or freezing of accounts, in order to maintain intra vires activities of charge filing, investigation, prosecution, adjudication, sentence enforcement.

In which, coercive delivery and forced escort are defined as follows:

- Coercive delivery refers to competent authorities’ compulsion of the attendance of persons who are held in emergency custody, apprehended or temporarily detained, or suspects and defendants at a place of investigation, prosecution or adjudication.

- Forced escort refers to competent authorities’ coercive taking of witness testifiers, persons denounced or facing requisitions for charges to a place of investigation, prosecution or adjudication, or crime victims refusing to undergo expert examinations.

(Points k, l, Clause 1, Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015)

2. Entities subject to coercive delivery and forced escort in Vietnam

Pursuant to Clause 1, Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015:

Coercive delivery may apply to persons:

+ Held in emergency custody

+ Facing charges.

Meanwhile, the forced escort may apply to:

- Witness testifiers absent despite of subpoenas not due to force majeure or objective obstacle;

- Crime victims, not due to force majeure or objective obstacles, refusing expert examination postulated by competent procedural authorities;

- Persons facing denunciation or requisitions for charges and, through sufficient evidences, found involved in criminal acts leading to charges, but resisting subpoena not because of force majeure or objective obstacle.

(Clause 2, Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015)

* Note: Pursuant to Clause 6, Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015:

- The coercive delivery or forced escort of people must not commence at night.

- Senile or seriously ill persons with medical facilities’ affirmation shall not be delivered and escorted by force.

3. Competence to decisions on coercive delivery and forced escort in Vietnam

Subjects entitled to make decisions on coercive delivery and forced escort according to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015, include:

-  Investigators;

- Heads of units assigned to investigate;

- Procurators;

- Presiding judges;

- Trial panel.

4. Decision on coercive delivery or forced escort in Vietnam

- A decision on coercive delivery or forced escort must specify:

+ Full name, date of birth, residential place of the person delivered or escorted by force;

+ Time and location for the appearance of such person

+ Other details as stated in Section 2, Article 132 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015.

- Enforcers of decisions on coercive delivery or forced escort shall read and explain such decisions and execute written records of coercive delivery or forced escort as per Article 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015.

Competent people’s police force and people’s military force shall be responsible for enforcing the decisions on coercive delivery and forced escort.

(Clause 4, 5, Article 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015)

Van Trong

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