ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia

Vietnam Proposes Ending Death Penalty For 6 More Offenses

At the same time, the government is introducing tougher sentencing provisions for acts deemed to undermine the state or the authority of the ruling Communist Party.

The National Assembly building in Ba Dinh Square, Hanoi, Vietnam.

⁠Vietnam’s government has proposed a further narrowing of its use of the death penalty, part of a broad overhaul of its Penal Code that could also see the authorities increase punishments for “anti-state” acts.

A draft revision of the Code presented to the National Assembly yesterday proposed removing the death penalty for an additional six offences, including drug trafficking, the rape of minors, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, state media reported.

If approved, the revision would leave the death penalty in place for just four crimes:  treason, murder, terrorism, and the illegal production of narcotics. The National Assembly is expected to debate the revisions in the coming weeks before voting on them in October.

The move comes after Vietnam last year removed the death penalty for eight criminal offenses, including embezzlement, bribe taking, espionage, illegally transporting narcotics, sabotaging state infrastructure, and “crime aimed at overthrowing the people’s government.” These changes spared the life of real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was sentenced to death in 2024 for her role in a $12 billion corruption scandal.

The maximum sentence for all of these crimes is now life imprisonment.

Over the past four decades, Vietnam’s government has gradually reduced the scope of capital punishment. In the 1985 Penal Code, the death penalty applied to 44 offenses, Tuoi Tre reported last week. This dropped to 29 in the 1999 Code, 22 in the 2009 Code, 18 in the 2015 Code, and 10 under the current version, which took effect on July 1, 2025.

Last year, Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh said that the decision to reduce the use of the death penalty “was based on careful analysis of the nature and severity of the offenses, the value of the interests........

© The Diplomat