What "exemption from criminal liability" under Article 29(3) actually means

When the Hanoi police announced that Nguyen Sy Cuong "fully meets the conditions to be exempted from criminal liability", many people heard: "that is what the law prescribes; nothing else could be done." The provision they invoked actually says something different: he may be exempted. The whole controversy fits inside that one word.

Step 1: What offense is this?

Investigators found that Cuong drove in the wrong lane, on the wrong part of the road, violating Clause 1, Article 260 of the Penal Code — the offense of violating road traffic regulations. The clause opens as follows:

"Any person who, while participating in road traffic, violates the regulations on road traffic safety and thereby causes damage to another person in one of the following circumstances shall be fined from 30,000,000 to 100,000,000 dong, sentenced to non-custodial reform for up to 03 years, or imprisoned for between 01 and 05 years." Clause 1, Article 260, Penal Code of 2015 (as amended in 2017); unofficial translation

"Causing a person's death" is point (a) of Clause 1. Because the top of that range is 5 years' imprisonment, under Article 9 of the Penal Code this is a serious crime — and because the fault in a traffic accident is negligence, it is a "serious crime committed through negligence". Hold on to that phrase: it is the doorway into Article 29.

For comparison: Clause 2 of Article 260 (3–10 years' imprisonment) applies when aggravating elements are present — driving without a license, alcohol above the limit or drugs, fleeing to evade responsibility or deliberately failing to help the victim, or killing two people. By placing this case under Clause 1, the investigators determined that none of those elements were present.

Step 2: Does a family waiver erase the crime?

This is the most widely misunderstood point. The short answer: no — not automatically.

Article 155 of the Criminal Procedure Code lists just nine offenses that may be prosecuted only at the victim's request — chiefly basic-tier intentional injury, rape, humiliation and slander offenses. Article 260 is not on that list. For this offense, even where the victim's family files a waiver, the case can still be prosecuted; an ordinary waiver counts merely as a mitigating circumstance under Article 51 when a court decides the sentence.

Put differently: in Vietnamese criminal law, a person's death is not a private matter for two families to settle between themselves. The state is the party that prosecutes.

Step 3: The Article 29 doorway — and the word "may"

So what was the basis for the exemption? Clause 3 of Article 29:

"A person who commits a serious crime through negligence, or a less serious crime, causing damage to the life, health, honor, dignity or property of another person, who has voluntarily repaired the damage, paid compensation or remedied the consequences, and with whom the victim or the victim's lawful representative has voluntarily reconciled, requesting an exemption from criminal liability, may be exempted from criminal liability." Clause 3, Article 29, Penal Code of 2015; unofficial translation

Three conditions must all be met: (1) a serious crime committed through negligence, or a less serious crime; (2) voluntary compensation and remediation of the consequences; (3) the victim, or their lawful representative, has voluntarily reconciled and asked for the exemption.

But meeting all three does not mean the exemption follows automatically. Article 29 splits into two very different groups:

• Clause 1 — mandatory exemption: when a change in policy or law means the conduct is no longer dangerous to society, or when a general amnesty is declared. The authorities have no choice.
• Clauses 2 and 3 — "may" be exempted: the competent authority is given discretion. It is never required to exempt.

The lawyer Nguyen Anh Thom (Hanoi Bar Association), writing in the police newspaper Cong an Nhan dan, makes exactly this point: "may" means not mandatory; the prosecuting authorities must weigh the nature and danger of the conduct, the actual consequences, and the offender's record in the round. Compensation plus the family's petition makes a person eligible — it does not, by itself, produce an exemption.

The lawyer Nguyen Hong Bach, speaking to VietnamNet, stressed the other face of the same provision: the law permits an exemption when the conditions are met, and the provision applies nationwide, not to any one case.

Both are correct statements of the law. The difference is this: once the law grants discretion, the legitimate question is no longer "was an exemption permitted?" but "why was the discretion exercised this way, this time?"

Step 4: What actual court practice shows

This is the part least discussed online — and the most persuasive, because it rests not on sentiment but on judgments.

In 2019, a research article by Hoang Dinh Duyen in the online Journal of the People's Courts (Tap chi Toa an nhan dan) showed that Article 29(3) is applied inconsistently, citing two cases that both met the clause's conditions yet ended differently:

• Not exempted: Judgment No. 46/2018/HS-ST of July 31, 2018, of the Yen My District People's Court (Hung Yen Province) — the defendant caused a fatal accident, paid 150 million dong in compensation, and the victim's family petitioned for an exemption. The court convicted and sentenced him anyway (to a suspended sentence) — even though the judgment records that the victim bore the primary fault.
• Exempted: another suspect caused a fatal accident — the victim was standing on the sidewalk and bore no fault at all — paid 300 million dong, and the authorities terminated the investigation, exempting him from criminal liability under Article 29(3).

In other words: the driver whose victim did share fault was convicted, while the driver whose victim bore no fault was let go. The article's author concluded that this disparity violates the equality principle in Article 3 of the Penal Code, and called for inter-agency guidance so the clause is applied uniformly. That call has still not become guidance.

A more recent case under the same provisions: Judgment No. 13/2025/HS-ST of September 27, 2025, of the Region 6 People's Court of Vinh Long Province — the defendant's inattention caused an accident that killed one person; he paid 30 million dong in compensation, and the victim's lawful representative asked for leniency and for the penalty to be waived. The court convicted him under point (a), Clause 1, Article 260 all the same, sentencing him to 1 year in prison, suspended.

As far back as 2018, Pham Thi Bich Ngoc, a case examiner at the Supreme People's Court, argued in the Journal of the People's Courts that where the fault lies entirely with the offender and someone has died, an exemption should not be considered; it should be reserved for cases where the victim also bore part of the fault, or where no one died.

Apply that to Nguyen Huy Tu Street: the conclusions announced on August 17, 2026 identify the cause as the car driver's driving in the wrong lane, on the wrong part of the road; press reports from May 2025 say the motorbike carrying father and daughter was traveling in the correct direction. The investigators have published no finding on each side's degree of fault — but if those reports are right, this is a one-sided-fault case with a death. Exactly the situation in which the Supreme Court examiner argued an exemption should not be granted.

So was the decision unlawful?

To be fair: there is no basis to call it unlawful. Article 29(3) permits an exemption when its three conditions are met, and on the published information all three were. The Hanoi People's Procuracy reviewed the decisions and found them well-founded and lawful.

But "lawful" and "fair" are two different yardsticks, and the public is entitled to use both. Three questions remain fully intact:

1. Why was the "may" resolved in favor of exemption, when comparable cases — same compensation, same family petition — still went to trial and ended in conviction?
2. Why was the exercise of that discretion never explained? The authorities listed the conditions as met, but published no reasoning for why, in a case of one-sided fault with a death, they chose to exempt.
3. Why fourteen months — and why did the conclusion arrive exactly one week after the case began trending?

"We followed the regulations" answers none of the three. And as one lawyer told The Straits Times, the generation asking these questions "is not easily satisfied with answers stating simply that (the) authorities acted 'in accordance with the law'; they want to know which laws, what specific decisions were made, and why those decisions were reached."

If there is one concrete reform worth demanding after this case, it is not the punishment of one man. It is what that 2019 article in the Journal of the People's Courts asked for seven years ago: inter-agency guidance so that Article 29(3) is applied the same way to everyone. When one provision yields two different outcomes depending on who is before it, what is lost is not just justice in a single case — it is the belief that the law means the same thing for everybody.