On September 19, 2011, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) approved Decision No. 39-QD/TW, on the establishment of the Steering Committee for Judicial Reform of the party. The position of head of this committee is assigned to the State President. Up to now, there have been 5 generations of the State President, there are also exactly 5 Heads of the committee.
Judicial reform is how the Vietnamese judiciary knows more justice. On the contrary, for the judiciary to trample on justice more and more, it is not reform, but making the judiciary go backwards. It is known that since the decision to establish this committee has been 12 years, but no State President has ever changed the judiciary.
Law making is the word used for legislators, who are considered representatives of the people. However, the word “making rules” in Vietnam is also a “slang” to refer to those who rely on their power to bully the weak, who want to impose their rules of the game on others. Traffic policemen stand guard to catch the car drivers and then ask for a bribe in exchange of not being administratively fined, known as “making the law.” Or those who protect, exploit, and requested money for protection, are also considered “law-making” actions.
“Law making” in such a sense is not exclusive to thugs and exploiters, but it is also a common method of government officials. People who do business in the jurisdiction of the regional police, in a certain city, are often “made into law.” If anyone refuses to accept the police’s rules of the game, even if there is a legitimate business, it will be difficult to survive, especially in the entertainment industry.
Why does Vietnamese society have such a popular way of “making the law“? The reason is that the Communist Party is also “making laws” with its people. In the National Assembly, over 95% are Communist Party members. Sitting in that parliament is full of communist members, then they will make laws for the people or for the Party, this has a clear answer already. The land law for many years still maintains the saying “the land is the property of the all people” which causes many injustices for ordinary people but the parliament still refuses to correct it. Or the right to protest is a constitutional right, but so far, the National Assembly has not legislated it. The purpose is to make it easier for the Ministry of Public Security to suppress people.
After many years of advocating “judicial reform,” the Vietnamese judiciary still clings to Articles 331 and 117 of the Criminal Code to arrest and imprison those who exercise the right to freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution 2013 of the Communist State. The two articles of the Criminal Code are contrary to the right to freedom of expression and the right to association, which are enshrined in Articles 9 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Vietnam is a member.
Recently, the police of Long An province used Article 331 to attack the defense lawyers for the defendants in the Tinh That Bong Lai case, which is a way that the Communist government is “making laws” with Vietnamese lawyers. The job of a lawyer is to protect and defend the client, to be precise, they must find evidence, apply the law to exonerate, or reduce the guilt of their client.
However, in 2017, the National Assembly legislated regulations requesting lawyers to denounce clients. The Chairwoman of the National Assembly at that time, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, was also determined to legislate this regulation. This is the Party’s policy, this policy will result in the destruction of the way of life of lawyers, or traps for lawyers, if they do right with their professional conscience. This is a policy of persecuting justice, causing the Vietnamese judiciary to move backwards.
The Tinh That Bong Lai case is a picture of the persecution of human rights lawyers who fight for justice. Through what the Communist Party has done, they are determined to turn the judiciary into a tool for them to rule, rather than want the judiciary to develop in the direction of justice. It can be said that as the Vietnamese citizens must accept the increasingly suffocating society.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
