If the court fees haven't been paid, can a criminal record be expunged?

In 2015, my younger sibling committed a gambling offense and was sentenced to two years in prison. They have served five years of their sentence and recently applied for a job. The company required a criminal record certificate. My sibling contacted the relevant authorities and was told that their criminal record could not be expunged because they had not paid the court fees. Is it true that a criminal record cannot be expunged without paying the court fees, and if they pay now, how long will it take for the record to be expunged?

Le Anh Tien

(Vung Liem)

Reply:

According to the provisions of the 2015 Penal Code (amended and supplemented in 2017), the crime of gambling is stipulated in Article 321, Chapter XXI, "Crimes against public safety and public order," and therefore falls under the category of cases where the criminal record is automatically expunged as stipulated in Article 70 of this code.

In this case, the fact that the criminal record has not been expunged due to unpaid court fees is correct because having served the sentence for 5 years already meets the necessary conditions for automatic expungement. However, Article 70 also clearly states that one of the sufficient conditions for a convicted person to have their criminal record automatically expunged is that "the person has completed serving the supplementary penalties and other decisions of the judgment." Therefore, the failure to pay court fees, even after serving the main sentence, is still considered as not having completed the judgment or decision of the court and does not automatically result in expungement.

On the other hand, a two-year prison sentence is governed by the provisions of point b, clause 2, Article 70. Therefore, after paying the court fees, it can be understood that the supplementary penalty and other decisions of the judgment have been fulfilled. However, there are currently no specific guidelines on whether or not to continue the time limit after paying the supplementary court fees, so there are many different opinions on this matter. Therefore, your brother should pay the supplementary court fees as soon as possible so that his criminal record can be expunged.

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