10 most prominent events of the Justice Sector in 2017 approved and announced
10:35 03/01/2018
Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long signed the Decision no.2691/QD-BTP dated December 29th, 2017 to approve and announce 10 most prominent events of the Justice Sector in 2017. We are hereby honored to present you with those prominent events.
1. An important step taken by the Justice Sector in law improvement: The Law on Legal aid which centers around the legitimate rights and interests of legal aid beneficiaries and the Law on the State compensation liability which expands and enhances the responsibilities of the State in the performance of public duties
In 2017, the Law on Legal Aid (amended) and the Law on State compensation liability (amended) were passed by the National Assembly with the approval rate of almost 100% (100% and more than 99% respectively). The adoption of these two laws by the National Assembly is an important step towards the improvement of the legal framework in the field of legal aid and state compensation. Accordingly, the Law on Legal Aid which centers around the legitimate rights and interests of legal aid beneficiaries expands the scope of legal aid beneficiaries and establishes many mechanisms to ensure the right to legal aid. The Law on State compensation liability which more clearly reflects the responsibilities of the State for illegal acts of public servants causing damages to citizens has become an important legal tool to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations, to prevent and combat illegal acts and to contribute to raising the sense of responsibility in the performance of public duties by the cadres and civil servants.
2. Bilateral cooperation in legal and judicial fields marking a new development milestone with a breakthrough in relations with neighboring countries.
In 2017, the Justice Sector has taken the initiative in actively enhancing the effectiveness of international legal cooperation, especially relations with neighboring countries such as Laos, Cambodia and China. In particular, in celebration of the Vietnam-Laos Friendship Solidarity Day, the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam actively cooperated with the Ministry of Justice of Laos to organize many meaningful activities, the highlight of which included the successful organization of the Anniversary on judicial cooperation between Viet Nam and Laos in Vientiane, submission for approval of the first Aid project in the legal field of the Government of Vietnam for the Lao Ministry of Justice and many other cooperation activities with the bordering provinces successfully organized by the Departments of Justice. The year 2017 also marks the successful organization of the first Judicial Conference of Viet Nam – Cambodia bordering provinces in Tay Ninh by the two ministries with the participation of many ministries, sectors and more than 20 bordering provinces of the two countries. With regard to China, many directions for legal cooperation have been discussed at the leadership level of the two Ministries of Justice during the official visit of the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam to China in 2017.
3. Law enforcement undergoing made many changes: Putting an end to the backlog of legal documents detailing the implementation of laws and ordinances under the authority of the Government and the Prime Minister, many innovations in legal dissemination and education and more prompt and sensible responses initiated.
With many drastic and practical measures, the drafting and issuance of legal documents detailing laws and ordinances in 2017 have achieved many positive results. The backlog of detailing documents dropped to the lowest level in the past few years. Particularly, the ministries and relevant agencies submitted 37 decrees and 03 decisions for issuance by the Government and the Prime Minister which completely met the target of the effective detailing documents to be issued in 2017. The backlog of the promulgation of detailing documents under the competence of the Government and the Prime Minister was cleared. Legal dissemination and education experienced many innovations associated with promoting the application of information technology to successfully organize many law contests, dialogue programs, legal online research attracting hundreds of thousands of participants and citizens. The Ministry of Justice and other ministries, sectors and localities consulted and submitted to the Prime Minister for promulgation and implementation of the legal dissemination and education program for the period 2017-2021 with 05 schemes and many new solutions to gradually improve legal dissemination and education.
Policy response was implemented in a timely, sensitive and practical manner through tools for examining legal documents and monitoring the implementation of law. The Ministry of Justice and the Justice sector have actively and closely cooperated with the promulgating agencies with the emphasis to the handling of unlawful documents to completely resolve a number of unlawful documents in stagnation for years. These efforts in protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people and enterprises and enhancing the accountability of state agencies in law drafting and enforcement were all warmly welcomed by public opinion.
4. Summarizing and applying historical values of legal reforms and building the State to the current period
In order to inherit the outstanding national governance experience in the history and glorious traditions of the nation, the Ministry of Justice has carried out many research activities to clarify and disseminate valuable lessons learned on legal reforms, the construction of the state apparatus and the appreciation of talented people under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong. Most important of all, the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province successfully organized a national conference named "Legal reforms and the construction of the state apparatus under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong - historical and contemporary values" in Thanh Hoa on the 520th anniversary of the death of the King. This conference received a special attention from the public with the participation of many leaders, former leaders of the Party, the State, leaders of ministries, sectors and localities. The workshop conveyed the valuable message about the experience on governance of our ancestors which attached the importance to the construction of a streamlined and effective state apparatus with close supervision of the high-rank officials to ensure the strength of the State and to the roles the talented played in the prosperity of each nation.
The results of the workshop were reported to the Prime Minister and widely disseminated to ministries, committees, sectors, media agencies and research and training institutions for research and application in improving the legal system, carrying out judicial and administrative reforms and building the rule of law and personnel strategies in the current period.
5. Civil judgment enforcement continuing to experience positive changes, achieving the highest results to date on the cases and the money of enforcement.
With many difficulties in socio-economic situation, both the number of cases and the amount of money collected rose (by 5.57% and 19.67% respectively, equivalent to 173 trillion VND) to the highest levels so far, increasing by more than 19,000 cases and 6,000 billion VND compared to last year. Particularly, the coordination in civil judgment enforcement was emphasized and renewed. The Ministry of Justice proposed to the Prime Minister to issue the Directive No.05/ CT-TTg on strengthening the coordination in civil judgment enforcement. Public administration reform and information technology application were also strengthened in the civil judgment enforcement system. All Bureaus of civil judgment enforcement in provinces and centrally-run cities and civil judgment enforcement agencies in districts, towns, cities of provinces and centrally-run cities implemented the online support for civil judgment enforcement, the one-stop services and the unified procedures in the announcement and posting of administrative procedures in civil judgment enforcement which received positive feedbacks from the authorities, organizations, people, and enterprises.
6. Implementing the National Action Plan on civil registration and vital statistics in the period 2017-2024 and expanding the civil status registration and management information system to achieve important results and to timely serve the people.
To accelerate Viet Nam's progress towards achieving the UN Global Compact on Sustainable development, based on the outcome of the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Meeting on Civil registration and vital statistics in Bangkok, Thailand, Vietnam's National Action Program on Civil registration and vital statistics for the period 2017-2024 is an important, practical, and relevant roadmap in ensuring citizens' rights which is in line with international practices and also has direct impacts on population and social management. In implementing the National Action Program and continuing to implement the Law on Civil status, the Justice sector has applied its birth registration software to 17 provinces and cities and its civil status registration software (full version) to 15 provinces. The registration of civil status in competent agencies has experienced many positive changes where civil status registration agencies have made new birth registration for nearly 2 million cases, registered birth certificates for more than 750,000 cases (up 38.3% compared to 2016) and fulfilled marriage registration for more than 700,000 couples...
7. Operating online registration software for secured transactions with the highest level of online public services, contributing to administrative reforms and creating favorable conditions for people and businesses.
Based on the tasks assigned by the Government in the Resolution no.36a/ND-CP, the Ministry of Justice has upgraded and put into operation the 4-grade software for online registration of moveable-property secured transactions. This is the first public service in the judicial field providing online services at the highest level. In the effort to apply information technology to secured transaction registration, in 2017, the Centers for Property transaction registration of the Ministry have successfully dealt with nearly one million applications for registration and providing information and written notices on the mortgage of vehicles (up 27% from 2016), of which online registration accounted for more than 50%. These results have significantly contributed to improving our access to credit indicator, ranking 29 over 190 countries (according to the 2018 World Bank's Business ease-of-doing-business ranking).
8. Training institutions improving on enrollment and training quality, contributing to judicial reforms and international integration.
In developing high-quality legal and judicial human resources for judicial reforms and international integration, in 2017, training institutions under the Ministry have made great efforts in achieving the training targets and plans with improving quality. Hanoi Law University admitted about 3,000 full-time students, more than 500 part-time students, and more than 500 graduate students. The Judicial Academy admitted over 4,000 students. These training institutions have improved the coordination with the Party committees and local authorities to organize many training courses on judicial titles and professional training for cadres. In particular, to implement the Scheme on "Development of lawyers for international economic integration from 2010 to 2020", the Judicial Academy organized the first training course for lawyers for international integration, initially aiming at building a team of qualified lawyers having excellent command of international law and commercial practices, fluent in English, proficient in international lawyer skills and capable of providing consultation services on issues related to international economic integration.
9. Early-than-scheduled codification of legal normative system meeting the demand of people and enterprises
On implementing the Ordinance on legal normative system codification, the Ministry of Justice has actively coordinated with ministries and agencies to codified 67 out of 265 categories, aiming at finishing the task earlier than scheduled by the Prime Minister. Nearly two thousand documents out of about ten thousand legal normative documents of the Central Government have been reviewed, “cleaned”, gathered and arranged into the Codification Book, contributing to improving uniformity, publicity and transparency of the legal system. On June 13th, 1977, the Government issued the Resolution no.48/NQ-CP on approving the codification of land law and 35 other headings. This result was officially published on the codification e-portal (http://www.phapdien.moj.gov.vn) for legal application and implementation, and was well received by people and businesses with over one million hits.
10. Active responds to the Government's scheme on "supporting start-ups"
In 2017, on implementing the directions of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Justice and legal agencies of Ministries and sectors have reviewed the difficulties in the reality of business activities related to land, construction, housing, environment, investment, business, specialized and inspection to propose to the Prime Minister the amendment and supplement of 16 laws in these fields. The evaluation of legal normative documents on investment, business and start-ups was focused on to remove unnecessary and illegal administrative procedures and to create favorable business conditions to ensure the freedom of doing business. The monitoring of law enforcement was more to the point to concentrate resources from central to local level to implement the plan on monitoring the implementation of law, creating favorable environment and supporting start-ups and enterprises with innovations in accessing and exploiting resources in capital, science and technology, land and labor. In addition, the inter-sector legal support program for enterprises in the period of 2015-2020 was carried out synchronously throughout the country with more than 100 dialogues and legal training courses, attracting nearly 10,000 delegates from enterprises. The legal consultancy network for enterprises was also established in 31 provinces and cities. 42 "Business and Law Programs" were broadcasted on Vietnam Television, and 208 “Business and Law Programs” were aired on the Voice of Vietnam Radio.
In 2017, the Law on Legal Aid (amended) and the Law on State compensation liability (amended) were passed by the National Assembly with the approval rate of almost 100% (100% and more than 99% respectively). The adoption of these two laws by the National Assembly is an important step towards the improvement of the legal framework in the field of legal aid and state compensation. Accordingly, the Law on Legal Aid which centers around the legitimate rights and interests of legal aid beneficiaries expands the scope of legal aid beneficiaries and establishes many mechanisms to ensure the right to legal aid. The Law on State compensation liability which more clearly reflects the responsibilities of the State for illegal acts of public servants causing damages to citizens has become an important legal tool to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations, to prevent and combat illegal acts and to contribute to raising the sense of responsibility in the performance of public duties by the cadres and civil servants.
2. Bilateral cooperation in legal and judicial fields marking a new development milestone with a breakthrough in relations with neighboring countries.
In 2017, the Justice Sector has taken the initiative in actively enhancing the effectiveness of international legal cooperation, especially relations with neighboring countries such as Laos, Cambodia and China. In particular, in celebration of the Vietnam-Laos Friendship Solidarity Day, the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam actively cooperated with the Ministry of Justice of Laos to organize many meaningful activities, the highlight of which included the successful organization of the Anniversary on judicial cooperation between Viet Nam and Laos in Vientiane, submission for approval of the first Aid project in the legal field of the Government of Vietnam for the Lao Ministry of Justice and many other cooperation activities with the bordering provinces successfully organized by the Departments of Justice. The year 2017 also marks the successful organization of the first Judicial Conference of Viet Nam – Cambodia bordering provinces in Tay Ninh by the two ministries with the participation of many ministries, sectors and more than 20 bordering provinces of the two countries. With regard to China, many directions for legal cooperation have been discussed at the leadership level of the two Ministries of Justice during the official visit of the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam to China in 2017.
3. Law enforcement undergoing made many changes: Putting an end to the backlog of legal documents detailing the implementation of laws and ordinances under the authority of the Government and the Prime Minister, many innovations in legal dissemination and education and more prompt and sensible responses initiated.
With many drastic and practical measures, the drafting and issuance of legal documents detailing laws and ordinances in 2017 have achieved many positive results. The backlog of detailing documents dropped to the lowest level in the past few years. Particularly, the ministries and relevant agencies submitted 37 decrees and 03 decisions for issuance by the Government and the Prime Minister which completely met the target of the effective detailing documents to be issued in 2017. The backlog of the promulgation of detailing documents under the competence of the Government and the Prime Minister was cleared. Legal dissemination and education experienced many innovations associated with promoting the application of information technology to successfully organize many law contests, dialogue programs, legal online research attracting hundreds of thousands of participants and citizens. The Ministry of Justice and other ministries, sectors and localities consulted and submitted to the Prime Minister for promulgation and implementation of the legal dissemination and education program for the period 2017-2021 with 05 schemes and many new solutions to gradually improve legal dissemination and education.
Policy response was implemented in a timely, sensitive and practical manner through tools for examining legal documents and monitoring the implementation of law. The Ministry of Justice and the Justice sector have actively and closely cooperated with the promulgating agencies with the emphasis to the handling of unlawful documents to completely resolve a number of unlawful documents in stagnation for years. These efforts in protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people and enterprises and enhancing the accountability of state agencies in law drafting and enforcement were all warmly welcomed by public opinion.
4. Summarizing and applying historical values of legal reforms and building the State to the current period
In order to inherit the outstanding national governance experience in the history and glorious traditions of the nation, the Ministry of Justice has carried out many research activities to clarify and disseminate valuable lessons learned on legal reforms, the construction of the state apparatus and the appreciation of talented people under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong. Most important of all, the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province successfully organized a national conference named "Legal reforms and the construction of the state apparatus under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong - historical and contemporary values" in Thanh Hoa on the 520th anniversary of the death of the King. This conference received a special attention from the public with the participation of many leaders, former leaders of the Party, the State, leaders of ministries, sectors and localities. The workshop conveyed the valuable message about the experience on governance of our ancestors which attached the importance to the construction of a streamlined and effective state apparatus with close supervision of the high-rank officials to ensure the strength of the State and to the roles the talented played in the prosperity of each nation.
The results of the workshop were reported to the Prime Minister and widely disseminated to ministries, committees, sectors, media agencies and research and training institutions for research and application in improving the legal system, carrying out judicial and administrative reforms and building the rule of law and personnel strategies in the current period.
5. Civil judgment enforcement continuing to experience positive changes, achieving the highest results to date on the cases and the money of enforcement.
With many difficulties in socio-economic situation, both the number of cases and the amount of money collected rose (by 5.57% and 19.67% respectively, equivalent to 173 trillion VND) to the highest levels so far, increasing by more than 19,000 cases and 6,000 billion VND compared to last year. Particularly, the coordination in civil judgment enforcement was emphasized and renewed. The Ministry of Justice proposed to the Prime Minister to issue the Directive No.05/ CT-TTg on strengthening the coordination in civil judgment enforcement. Public administration reform and information technology application were also strengthened in the civil judgment enforcement system. All Bureaus of civil judgment enforcement in provinces and centrally-run cities and civil judgment enforcement agencies in districts, towns, cities of provinces and centrally-run cities implemented the online support for civil judgment enforcement, the one-stop services and the unified procedures in the announcement and posting of administrative procedures in civil judgment enforcement which received positive feedbacks from the authorities, organizations, people, and enterprises.
6. Implementing the National Action Plan on civil registration and vital statistics in the period 2017-2024 and expanding the civil status registration and management information system to achieve important results and to timely serve the people.
To accelerate Viet Nam's progress towards achieving the UN Global Compact on Sustainable development, based on the outcome of the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Meeting on Civil registration and vital statistics in Bangkok, Thailand, Vietnam's National Action Program on Civil registration and vital statistics for the period 2017-2024 is an important, practical, and relevant roadmap in ensuring citizens' rights which is in line with international practices and also has direct impacts on population and social management. In implementing the National Action Program and continuing to implement the Law on Civil status, the Justice sector has applied its birth registration software to 17 provinces and cities and its civil status registration software (full version) to 15 provinces. The registration of civil status in competent agencies has experienced many positive changes where civil status registration agencies have made new birth registration for nearly 2 million cases, registered birth certificates for more than 750,000 cases (up 38.3% compared to 2016) and fulfilled marriage registration for more than 700,000 couples...
7. Operating online registration software for secured transactions with the highest level of online public services, contributing to administrative reforms and creating favorable conditions for people and businesses.
Based on the tasks assigned by the Government in the Resolution no.36a/ND-CP, the Ministry of Justice has upgraded and put into operation the 4-grade software for online registration of moveable-property secured transactions. This is the first public service in the judicial field providing online services at the highest level. In the effort to apply information technology to secured transaction registration, in 2017, the Centers for Property transaction registration of the Ministry have successfully dealt with nearly one million applications for registration and providing information and written notices on the mortgage of vehicles (up 27% from 2016), of which online registration accounted for more than 50%. These results have significantly contributed to improving our access to credit indicator, ranking 29 over 190 countries (according to the 2018 World Bank's Business ease-of-doing-business ranking).
8. Training institutions improving on enrollment and training quality, contributing to judicial reforms and international integration.
In developing high-quality legal and judicial human resources for judicial reforms and international integration, in 2017, training institutions under the Ministry have made great efforts in achieving the training targets and plans with improving quality. Hanoi Law University admitted about 3,000 full-time students, more than 500 part-time students, and more than 500 graduate students. The Judicial Academy admitted over 4,000 students. These training institutions have improved the coordination with the Party committees and local authorities to organize many training courses on judicial titles and professional training for cadres. In particular, to implement the Scheme on "Development of lawyers for international economic integration from 2010 to 2020", the Judicial Academy organized the first training course for lawyers for international integration, initially aiming at building a team of qualified lawyers having excellent command of international law and commercial practices, fluent in English, proficient in international lawyer skills and capable of providing consultation services on issues related to international economic integration.
9. Early-than-scheduled codification of legal normative system meeting the demand of people and enterprises
On implementing the Ordinance on legal normative system codification, the Ministry of Justice has actively coordinated with ministries and agencies to codified 67 out of 265 categories, aiming at finishing the task earlier than scheduled by the Prime Minister. Nearly two thousand documents out of about ten thousand legal normative documents of the Central Government have been reviewed, “cleaned”, gathered and arranged into the Codification Book, contributing to improving uniformity, publicity and transparency of the legal system. On June 13th, 1977, the Government issued the Resolution no.48/NQ-CP on approving the codification of land law and 35 other headings. This result was officially published on the codification e-portal (http://www.phapdien.moj.gov.vn) for legal application and implementation, and was well received by people and businesses with over one million hits.
10. Active responds to the Government's scheme on "supporting start-ups"
In 2017, on implementing the directions of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Justice and legal agencies of Ministries and sectors have reviewed the difficulties in the reality of business activities related to land, construction, housing, environment, investment, business, specialized and inspection to propose to the Prime Minister the amendment and supplement of 16 laws in these fields. The evaluation of legal normative documents on investment, business and start-ups was focused on to remove unnecessary and illegal administrative procedures and to create favorable business conditions to ensure the freedom of doing business. The monitoring of law enforcement was more to the point to concentrate resources from central to local level to implement the plan on monitoring the implementation of law, creating favorable environment and supporting start-ups and enterprises with innovations in accessing and exploiting resources in capital, science and technology, land and labor. In addition, the inter-sector legal support program for enterprises in the period of 2015-2020 was carried out synchronously throughout the country with more than 100 dialogues and legal training courses, attracting nearly 10,000 delegates from enterprises. The legal consultancy network for enterprises was also established in 31 provinces and cities. 42 "Business and Law Programs" were broadcasted on Vietnam Television, and 208 “Business and Law Programs” were aired on the Voice of Vietnam Radio.