Comparative Study of the Provisions on the Crime of Property Extortion in Vietnamese Criminal Law with the Criminal Law of Some Countries

To resolve the above issues, in Joint Circular No. 02/2001/TTLT-TANDTC-VKSNDTC-BCA-BTP dated December 25, 2001 of the Court

Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuracy, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice on guidance on the application of a number of provisions in Chapter XIV "Crimes against property" of the 1999 Penal Code.

The Joint Circular provides guidance on the application of the circumstances of "causing serious consequences", "causing very serious consequences", "causing especially serious consequences" (from Article 133 to Article 140, Article 142 and Article 143 of the Penal Code) , it is necessary to note: The consequences must be caused by the criminal act (there is a causal relationship between the criminal act and the consequences). Such consequences can be damage to life, health, property or immaterial consequences (negatively affecting the implementation of the Party's guidelines and State policies; negative impact on security, order and social safety).

To consider in which cases a crime causes serious consequences, in which cases a crime causes very serious consequences and in which cases a crime causes especially serious consequences, in general principles, it is necessary to evaluate comprehensively and fully the consequences (damage to property, damage to life, health and non-material damage). If damage to life, health or property is caused, it is determined as follows:

a) If one of the following cases causes serious consequences: a.1) Causing the death of a person;

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a.2) Causing injury or damage to the health of one to two people with a disability rate of 61% or more for each person;

a.3) Causing injury or damage to the health of three to four people with each person's disability rate from 31% to 60%;

a.4) Causing injury or damage to the health of many people with the total disability rate of all these people from

61% to 100%, if not falling under the cases guided in points a.2 and a.3 above;

a.5) Causing injury or damage to the health of many people with a total disability rate of 31% to 60% and also causing property damage worth from 30 million VND to less than 50 million VND;

a.6) Causing property damage worth from 50 million VND to under 500 million VND [38].

b) If one of the following cases occurs, the consequences will be very serious:

b.1) Causing the death of two people;

b.2) Causing injury or damage to the health of three to four people with each person's disability rate from 61% or more;

b.3) Causing injury or damage to the health of five to seven people with each person's disability rate from 31% to 60%;

b.4) Causing injury or damage to the health of many people with a total disability rate of all these people from 101% to 200%, if not falling under one of the cases guided in points b.2 and b.3 above;

b.5) Causing property damage worth from 500 million VND to less than one billion five hundred million VND;

b.6) Causing damage to life, health and property with consequences falling under two to three points from point a.1 to point a.6 of sub-section 3.4 [38].

c) If one of the following cases occurs, it will cause particularly serious consequences:

c.1) Causing the death of three or more people;

c.2) Causing injury or damage to the health of five or more people with each person's disability rate from 61% or more;

c.3) Causing injury or damage to the health of eight or more people with each person's disability rate from 31% to 60%;

c.4) Causing injury or damage to the health of many people with a total disability rate of all these people from 201% or more, if not falling into one of the cases guided in points c.2 and c.3 above;

c.5) Causing property damage worth one billion five hundred million dong or more;

c.6) Causing damage to life, health and property with consequences falling under four or more points from point a.1 to point a.6 of sub-section 3.4 of this Law;

c.7) Causing damage to life, health and property with consequences falling under two or more points from point b.1 to point b.6 of sub-section 3.4 of this [38].

In addition to the damage to life, health and property, practice shows that there may also be non-material consequences, such as negative impacts on the implementation of the Party's guidelines and State policies, affecting security, order and social safety... In these cases, it is necessary to assess the level of consequences caused by the crime as serious, very serious or especially serious depending on each specific case.

It can be seen that the instructions in the above joint circular specify very basic issues in determining the crime and deciding the punishment for the offender. The clear and specific regulation of the concepts of determining the consequences of this crime has helped the agencies conducting the proceedings and the prosecutors have a basis for application, responding to the fight against crimes against property in general and crimes of extortion in particular.

As for determining the crime as "Professional in nature" , it is similar to other crimes against property, this act is

identified as the offender who mainly makes a living from extortion.

In the 2009 amendment to the Penal Code, the provisions on the crime of property extortion remained unchanged, demonstrating relative stability and partly meeting the needs of society in the fight against this type of crime.

1.3 COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PROVISIONS ON THE CRIME OF EXTORTION OF PROPERTY IN VIETNAM'S CRIMINAL LAW WITH THE CRIMINAL LAW OF SOME COUNTRIES

1.3.1. Japanese Criminal Code

The Japanese Penal Code was promulgated on April 24, 1907 and came into effect on October 1, 1908. This is one of the basic legal codes consisting of 06 legal documents. The current Japanese Penal Code was most recently amended and supplemented on June 24, 2011.

The Japanese Penal Code consists of 40 Chapters and 264 specific articles. The Japanese Penal Code does not provide a definition of crime nor does it classify crimes according to their dangerous behavior. Punishment is only applied to intentional crimes, except in cases where the law has specific provisions on unintentional crimes.

Part 2 of the Penal Code stipulates most of the criminal acts and their signs. Unlike the laws of many other countries, crimes in Japan are not classified into groups but into chapters. For crimes against property, the Japanese Penal Code is divided into chapters such as Chapter 36: Crimes of theft and robbery; Chapter 37: Crimes of fraud and intimidation; Chapter 38: Crimes of embezzlement; Chapter 39: Crimes related to stolen property...

In Chapter 37: Crime of fraud and intimidation, "Crime of intimidation" is stipulated in Article 249, specifically:

1. Anyone who threatens another person to extort money shall be sentenced to hard labor for up to ten years.

2. Anyone who, by means of the previous paragraph, obtains property benefits, or has someone else obtain them, shall also be punished as in the previous paragraph [22, pp. 39-40].

Thus, basically, the Japanese Penal Code only regulates the handling of threatening behavior. There is no law regulating the concept of crime or explaining in detail the quantification or framing of punishment. The Japanese Penal Code also fully and strictly regulates acts of property infringement and also has some crimes similar to the Vietnamese Penal Code. However, compared to the Vietnamese Penal Code, there are also some differences as follows:

Firstly, in the Japanese Penal Code, all criminal acts in the Penal Code in general and property infringement in particular are not named by lawmakers as in the Vietnamese Penal Code. Lawmakers only describe criminal acts in the content of the law;

Second, there are no aggravating circumstances to determine the penalty as in the Penal Code of Vietnam;

Third, the maximum penalty for crimes of property appropriation in the Japanese Penal Code is more severe than the Vietnamese Penal Code;

Fourthly, in addition, there are some specific crimes different from the Penal Code of Vietnam that can be referred to by our country's lawmakers when amending, supplementing and perfecting the Penal Code, for example: regulations on electricity, special regulations on crimes between relatives stipulated in the Chapter on theft and robbery of property or the Chapter on fraud and intimidation.

1.3.2. Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China

The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China was passed by the 5th National People's Congress of China at its 2nd session on July 1, 1979, took effect on January 1, 1980 and was

amended and supplemented in 1982 and 1987. The Penal Code of the People's Republic of China consists of two parts: the General Part and the Crime Part, and has a total of 452 Articles [22, pp. 13.14].

Through research on the Criminal Code of the People's Republic of China, we can see that in Chapter V: Crimes against property, there are provisions on a number of acts such as robbery, theft, fraud, property appropriation; snatching; illegal possession of property. However, it only describes the criminal acts in the content of the law, but does not name the crime of the law.

The provisions in Chapter V: Crimes of property infringement also do not state any acts that are acts of extortion or acts similar to acts of extortion.

1.3.3. Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was adopted by the State Duma (Lower House) on November 24, 1995, and took effect on March 1, 1996. This is the fourth Criminal Code of the Russian Federation after the Codes of 1922, 1926 and 1960. The 1995 Criminal Code is not an amendment or supplement to the 1960 Criminal Code but a new Criminal Code, with many differences compared to the 1960 Criminal Code. The 1995 Criminal Code includes a general part and a part on crimes arranged in 12 parts, 34 Chapters and 352 Articles.

In the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, crimes against property (Chapter 21) are regulated in Part VIII - Crimes in the economic sphere together with crimes against the sphere of economic activity (Chapter 22) and crimes against the interests of other commercial and service organizations (Chapter 23). Regarding crimes against property, the Code does not distinguish between ownership or civil ownership as previously prescribed (the Criminal Code of 1960 stipulates that crimes against property have two forms of ownership with different treatment policies). For all crimes against property, a fine is widely applied as the main penalty, which is chosen from other penalties such as compulsory labor, reformatory labor or imprisonment. In general, penalties for crimes against property

Economic crimes are mainly punished by fines, imprisonment is rarely applied and if so, the penalties are light.

In the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the crime of Extortion is regulated in Article 163 - Chapter 21, Crimes against property. The article specifically stipulates as follows:

1. Extortion is requiring another person to hand over property or rights to that property or to perform other acts of a property nature by threatening to use force or destroying or causing damage to another person's property or threatening to disclose information harmful to the victim or their relatives or other information that is likely to cause significant damage to the rights or legitimate interests of the victim or their relatives.

- Shall be punished with restriction of liberty for up to 03 years or imprisonment for up to 06 months or imprisonment for up to 04 years with a fine of up to 50 times the minimum income or salary or other income of the convicted person for a period of up to 01 month or without such punishment.

2. Extortion of property:

a) Carried out by a group of people with a plan;

b) Performed multiple times;

c) Use of force;

- Shall be punished from 05 years to 10 years, have property confiscated or not accompanied by such punishment.

3. Extortion of property:

a) Causing serious damage to the victim's health;

b) Carried out by an organized group of people;

c) Committed by a person who has been previously convicted two or more times of appropriation or extortion;

d) For the purpose of collecting assets in large quantities.

- The penalty is from 07 years to 15 years with confiscation of property [22, pp. 93-94].

Through studying the provisions on this behavior of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it can be seen that the law defines the concept of the crime of extortion of property in quite detail, describes relatively clearly the acts considered as extortion of property, such provisions create favorable conditions when applying to handle criminal acts.

However, the law also contains some concepts that are not specifically and clearly defined and, if applied correctly, require detailed guidance, such as "likely to cause significant damage to the rights or legitimate interests of the victim" and "property in large quantities".

In summary, through studying the concept, history of formation and development of Vietnamese criminal law and studying and comparing with the laws of some countries in the world, it can be seen that: the act of extortion of property is an act committed by a person with criminal liability capacity and reaching the legal age with the fault of intentionally directly infringing on the right to own property of another person by threatening to use force or means of intimidation of the spirit of the owner, property manager or other related person in order to appropriate property. This act is a crime stipulated in the Penal Code,

In the process of international economic exchange and integration, people's material and spiritual life is increasingly improved and diversified, due to many opportunities to access and absorb the quintessence and culture of mankind. Besides the positive aspects, the negative aspects of the integration process have also penetrated into social life and left particularly serious consequences. These have had a negative impact on the ideology, morality, and lifestyle of a part of the population, affecting political security and social order and safety. Because of that

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