A Broken Tradition: The Ministry of Justice Loses Lead Role in Drafting the Penal Code

Bảo Khánh wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 29, 2025. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.

---

When Lê Thành Long vacated his office in the French colonial-era building at 60 Trần Phú Street, Hà Nội, in June 2024, it is unlikely he foresaw that he might be the last Minister of Justice to oversee the drafting of the Penal Code. The government has been urgently revising this critical legal document, with the project slated for fast-tracking to National Assembly approval in October 2025.¹

In a break with long-standing tradition, the Ministry of Public Security has been assigned the lead drafting role—a task that has historically been held by the Ministry of Justice.²

The architect of this historic shift, who also gave his approval for this change, is none other than Deputy Prime Minister Lê Thành Long himself.³ Before his promotion, Long had spent over 30 years in the justice sector, including nearly eight years as Minister of Justice, where he led the drafting of the 2015 and 2017 versions of the very code now being revised.⁴ ⁵

With his signature on Decision No. 690/QĐ-TTg, he officially transferred one of the Ministry of Justice’s most important duties.

A Broken Tradition

Historically, the Ministry of Justice has always held the lead role in drafting Việt Nam’s criminal law, a tradition that predates even the first formal Penal Code.⁶ As far back as the 1940s and 50s, the ministry was central in issuing foundational decrees on crimes ranging from embezzlement to kidnapping, as illustrated in the following:

• Decree No. 27 (February 28, 1946) on prosecuting crimes of kidnapping, extortion, and assassination was issued at the request of the Minister of Justice.²²
• Decree No. 223/SL (November 27, 1946) on punishing embezzlement was issued at the request of the Ministry of Justice.²³
• Decree No. 168/SL (April 14, 1948) on sentencing for gambling offenses was issued upon the joint recommendation of the Ministers of Interior, Justice, and Defense.²⁴
• Decree No. 267/SL (June 15, 1956) on punishing acts of sabotage against state and public property and obstruction of state policies was issued at the request of the Ministry of Justice.²⁵

When the time came to draft the 1985 Penal Code, the Ministry of Justice had been temporarily dissolved, and its duties were handled by the Legal Committee.⁸ ⁹ ¹⁰ However, once the ministry was reestablished in 1981, it immediately took charge, accelerating the drafting process and leading all subsequent amendments to that code in 1989, 1991, 1992, and 1997.¹¹ ¹² ¹³ ¹⁴ ¹⁵

This tradition continued unbroken for decades. The Ministry of Justice served as the lead drafting body for the 1999 Penal Code and its 2009 amendments.¹⁶ ¹⁷ ¹⁸ It was again tasked with drafting the 2015 Penal Code and its 2017 amendments, with ministry leadership even taking public responsibility for errors in the 2015 version that delayed its implementation.¹⁹ ²⁰ ²¹

Legal expert Nguyễn Quốc Việt, who was involved in drafting all three generations of the Penal Code, serves as a living testament to this long-standing institutional practice.⁷

A Power Shift

In all previous versions of the Penal Code, the Ministry of Public Security participated only as a coordinating agency. Now, it has been given the central drafting role, while the Ministry of Justice has been relegated to a supporting position among several other ministries.

This breaks legal tradition that stretches back to the earliest days of the country. As historical records show, the Ministry of Justice has been the principal architect of Việt Nam’s criminal law for decades.

At the center of this is the blatant irony of Deputy Prime Minister Lê Thành Long, the former Minister of Justice, signing the very decision that took power away from his old ministry. This raises several questions about the future direction of legal reform in Việt Nam and the principles that will shape the country’s most important laws for years to come.