Vietnam Eliminates Death Penalty for Eight Offenses

On June 25, 2025, Vietnam’s National Assembly approved a mea­sure intro­duced by the gov­ern­ment to reduce the num­ber of death-eli­gi­ble offens­es from 18 to 10. Effective July 1, 2025, the for­mer­ly cap­i­tal crimes of ille­gal drug trans­port, pro­duc­tion and sale of coun­ter­feit med­i­cine, embez­zle­ment, accept­ing bribes, espi­onage, jeop­ar­diz­ing peace and wag­ing war, and van­dal­iz­ing state prop­er­ty will be pun­ish­able by life impris­on­ment. Prisoners already sen­tenced to death for these offens­es will have their sen­tences con­vert­ed to life imprisonment. 

The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty wel­comed the revi­sion as a step towards com­plete abo­li­tion. In a press release from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, spokesper­son Seif Magango called on the nation to ​“build on this his­toric vote by tak­ing fur­ther steps toward abol­ish­ing the death sen­tence com­plete­ly, for all crimes” and to imple­ment a mora­to­ri­um. Amnesty International death penal­ty expert Chiara Sangiorgio echoed these sen­ti­ments, call­ing the revi­sion as a ​“pos­i­tive step” but ​“far from enough.” She also expressed con­cern about issues of due process in cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ings and secre­cy sur­round­ing the nation’s use of the death penalty. 

Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security Luong Tam Quang, who led the draft­ing of the mea­sure, explained that ​“the cur­rent struc­ture of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was prob­lem­at­ic and, in some cas­es, mis­aligned with evolv­ing socio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and the real­i­ties of crime pre­ven­tion.” The mea­sure passed with wide­spread sup­port despite ear­li­er par­lia­men­tary dis­agree­ments cen­tered around whether to include ille­gal drug trans­port, pro­duc­tion and sale of coun­ter­feit med­i­cine, embez­zle­ment, and bribe-taking. 

Among those pris­on­ers who will be resen­tenced to life impris­on­ment as a result of the legal change is Truong My Lan, a real-estate tycoon sen­tenced to death in April 2024 for embez­zling bil­lions in the nation’s largest ever fraud case. On December 3, 2024, Ms. Lan’s death sen­tence was upheld with the poten­tial for com­mu­ta­tion if she were to repay three-quar­ters of the embez­zled funds. Following this lat­est revi­sion to the penal code, her lawyer, Giang Hong Thanh, told AFP Ms. Lan could be con­sid­ered for ​“a fur­ther reduc­tion of her sen­tence” beyond life impris­on­ment were she to make the com­pen­sa­tion pay­ment and ful­fill ​“some oth­er con­di­tions.” He added that Ms. Lan is ​“active­ly coop­er­at­ing with state agen­cies… to come to a final solu­tion to the case.” 

Nguyen Minh Duc, a police lieu­tenant gen­er­al and Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on National Defense and Security, said the new penal code pro­vi­sions would aid Vietnam in its anti­cor­rup­tion efforts, as some coun­tries have refused Vietnamese extra­di­tion requests because the crime in ques­tion is a death-eli­gi­ble offense. Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh expressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, high­light­ing that elim­i­nat­ing the death penal­ty for these eight offens­es would aid Vietnam’s inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion efforts more generally.