THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To promulgate together with this Decision the Action Program of the judicial service for the 2002-2007 period.

Article 2.- This Decision takes effect after its signing.

Article 3.- The heads of the units attached to the Ministry, the directors of the provincial/municipal Justice Services, the legal organizations of the ministries and branches, and the judicial support organizations shall have to implement this Decision.

Minister of Justice
UONG CHU LUU

In furtherance of the Political Bureau’s Resolution No. 08/NQ-TW of January 2, 2002; the Prime Minister’s Directive No. 10/CT-TTg of March 19, 2002 on a number of key tasks of the judicial work in the coming time; the Government’s Action Program for its 2002-2007 term; and the Government’s 10-year (2001-2010) general program for administrative reform, the Justice Ministry has elaborated the judicial service’s action program for the 2002-2007 period.

A. CONTEXT, SITUATION, OBJECTIVES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THE JUDICIAL WORK IN THE 2002-2007 PERIOD

I. CONTEXT AND SITUATION

The cause of national renewal initiated and led by the our Party has recorded great achievements. In the coming time, the renewal cause shall be further stepped up and tend to go more profoundly, thus creating great opportunities and favorable conditions and concurrently giving rise to difficulties and challenges.

Regarding the judicial work, under the Party’s and the State’s leadership and direction, the judicial service has made new progresses and further developed, thus actively contributing to the national renewal process.

Besides, the current quality of the judicial work is still not up to the reality’s demands and higher and higher requirements of the renewal cause, the judicial reform, the administrative reform, the active international economic integration and the building of a socialist law-governed State of the people, by the people and for the people; the service-building work has not yet been considered a strategic task, the organizational system of judicial agencies, especially local judicial agencies and judicial support organizations, legal sections of the ministries and branches have not been substantially strengthened and really stable; the work of training, fostering and planning judicial officials still lacks conditions for long-term development, and efforts made in the recent past have been merely solutions to overcome immediate difficulties.

The above-said situation poses high requirements and demands strong resolve of the judicial service in the 2002-2007 period.

II. OBJECTIVES

In the 2002-2007 period, the judicial work shall focus on the following two objectives:

1. To take initiative in realizing the IXth Party National Congress’s Resolution and resolutions of the Party Central Committee, organize the implementation of the Strategy for development of the legal system till 2010 and the tasks assigned the Party and the State, contribute to the institutional building, judicial reform, administrative reform, democratic promotion and legislation enhancement, and more effectively serve the socio-economic development tasks and active international economic integration of the country;

2. To build the organization and apparatus of the Justice Ministry, clearly define its functions, tasks and powers and build up a contingent of cadres commensurate to its tasks, thus making it strong enough for and compatible with the process of building a law-governed State of the people, by the people and for the people, and the system of clean and strong local judicial agencies, legal organizations of ministries and branches and judicial support organizations as well as a contingent of judicial officials having a firm political stance, good ethical quality and high professional qualifications. To strive for by 2007 a system of judicial agencies strong enough and a contingent of cadres with quality commensurate to the requirements of the service and the country.

III. REQUIREMENTS

1. The process of organizing the implementation of the 2002-2007 program of action must stick closely to and concretize the Party’s resolutions, the National Assembly’s working programs, the Government’s action program and the Prime Minister’s directives, and at the same time inherit, supplement, integrate and combine with previously drawn up programs, plans and schemes on judicial reform, administrative reform and international economic integration;

2. To reach high unanimity in perception, action and resolve in the entire service, create a new motive force for realization of contents of the action program, and make a breakthrough in the 2002-2007 period, which shall serve as an important premise for development steps after 2007.

B. MAJOR TASKS

I. RAISING THE ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE JUDICIAL SERVICE IN THE INSTITUTIONAL BUILDING WORK

1. To stick to reality, propose subject matters which need legal normative documents to regulate, ensure the practicability, feasibility and scientificity of the National Assembly’s and the Government’s law-making programs in the 2002-2007 period;

2. To exert its active role and initiative in coordination with other services and participation in the elaboration of legal documents for which the prime responsibility assumed by other agencies and organizations; take initiative in giving its advice on improvement of the process of elaborating, commenting, evaluating and adopting legal documents;

3. To formulate a mechanism for and effectively conduct the examination of legal documents from the central to local levels, with a view to ensuring the uniformity, consistency, clearness and transparency of the legal system;

4. To take initiative in reviewing and studying legal documents for amendments and supplements thereto or compilation of new ones, signing or acceding to international treaties in service of international economic integration;

5. To form a full, complete and synchronous system of legal documents on judgment execution, documents in the judicial administration, judicial support, law propagation, dissemination and education, registration of security transactions, and legal assistance.

To complete within the set schedule and ensure quality and feasibility of bills and legal documents drafted by the Ministry of Justice, the provincial/municipal Justice Services, district-level Justice Sections or the legal organizations of the ministries and branches, which have been assigned to assume the prime responsibility for drafting thereof;

6. To actively take part in giving advice or proposing measures to raise the effectiveness of law enforcement.

II. CONTINUING TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES IN THE CIVIL JUDGMENT EXECUTION AND RAISING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE JUDGMENT EXECUTION WORK

1. To clearly define the tasks, powers and responsibilities of the judgment-executing agencies and executors, consolidate their organization, payroll personnel, regimes, policies and working conditions to suit the peculiar characteristics of the judgment execution work; to concentrate on building and strengthening the system of judgment-executing agencies capable of fulfilling their tasks;

2. To raise the effectiveness of the judgment execution work, ensure the definite execution of cases where conditions permit, thus radically reducing the number of unsettled cases and unexecuted judgments; to make the timely concentrated direction, and consolidate forces, conditions and material facilities for settling big cases or typical cases;

3. To rectify the order and discipline, create big improvement in ethical quality and public-service responsibility of executors and judgment-executing officials;

4. To settle in a timely and definite manner complaints and denunciations about the judgment execution at the places where they arise. In 2003, efforts shall be concentrated on settling complaints which are imperative and left unsettled for a long time;

5. To study and propose the concentrated and unified management of execution of both civil and criminal judgments by a sole agency, and step by step socialize the judgment execution work.

III. CONSOLIDATING THE ORGANIZATION, RAISING THE OPERATION EFFICIENCY OF THE JUDICIAL SUPPORT AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS AND JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION ACTIVITIES

1. To vigorously renovate the State management over the judicial assistance activities along the direction of reorganizing and enhancing operation capability of the judicial support agencies and organizations, and provide legal assistance to people; combine the State management with the self-management by professional organizations and associations. To satisfy in a convenient manner all demands for legal assistance, thus contributing to materializing a just and democratic judicial system. To step by step socialize activities of notarization, property auction and legal expertise.

To consolidate and develop the contingent of lawyers, public notaries, arbiters and coroners fully meeting the society’s demands. To raise the legal capability and position of lawyers who participate in the legal proceedings, especially litigation at court;

2. To simplify the administrative procedures in judicial activities. To publicize the regulations on procedures for receiving and settling people’s affairs. To address the situation of failing to make household registrations within the prescribed time limit (especially in deep-lying and remote areas). To well implement the Government’s Decree No. 68/2002/ND-CP, and put the registration of marriages between Vietnamese people and foreigners and adoption of Vietnamese children by foreigners into order; to ensure the operation efficiency of the international child adoption agency.

Regarding the work of nationality, to strive to put an end to the situation of unidentified nationalities of a proportion of population, especially in the southern provinces; and adequately solve cases of application for Vietnamese nationality naturalization.

To step by step modernize activities of registration of households, security transactions, nationality, judicial records, etc., and raise the service sense and professional ethics of professional cadres in these activities.

IV. INTENSIFYING THE WORK OF LAW PROPAGATION, DISSEMINATION AND EDUCATION, AND CONCILIATION AT GRASSROOTS, STRONGLY TARGETING THE LAW PROPAGATION, DISSEMINATION AND EDUCATION TO ORDINARY PEOPLE

1. To organize the implementation of the program on law dissemination and education in the 2002-2007 period;

2. To concentrate on disseminating and propagating laws on a number of domains, aiming to create a substantial change in the law observance sense of officials and people;

3. To raise the quality of the teaching and study of the citizen education and law subjects in schools, striving to develop such subjects into principal subjects in educational curricula;

4. To build conciliation teams in 100% of villages, hamlets and population quarters; to increase the rate of successful conciliation cases to over 80% of the total number of cases;

5. To develop information channels and forms of law dissemination and education to each subject, ensuring easy access for the people to the system of legal documents, with special importance attached to schools, deep-lying, remote and rural areas and regions inhabited by ethnic minority people;

6. To raise the quality of management and use of law bookcases in communes, wards and district townships; to build law bookcases in schools, State agencies and enterprises. To strive for the objective that 100% of communes, wards and district townships by 2005 and 100% of schools, agencies and State enterprises by 2007 shall have their law bookcases.

V. ENHANCING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN THE JUDICIAL AND LEGAL DOMAINS

1. To widely popularize and organize the implementation of the international treaties which our State has signed or acceded to. To take initiative in studying for signing of treaties on mutual judicial assistance with foreign countries, first of all neighboring countries, regional countries and countries having traditional relationship with Vietnam.

To fully perceive the advantages and disadvantages of the process of international economic integration as well as judicial and legal cooperation in order to take initiative in conducting activities of revising legal documents, making suggestions on proposing amendments and supplements to legal documents to make them compatible with the international economic integration roadmap, perfecting Vietnam’s legal system to meet the country’s integration requirements;

2. To expand and raise the efficiency of international cooperation in the judicial and legal domains. To continue campaigning for more new projects and financial aid of international and foreign organizations in service of study of experiences, research and training of legal cadres, and to support the enhancement of capability and working efficiency of the Justice Ministry and the entire service;

3. To tightly manage activities of international cooperation in judicial and legal domains, promptly report and give advice to the bodies of the Party, the National Assembly and the Government on newly arising matters.

VI. REGARDING THE BUILDING OF THE JUDICIAL SERVICE

1. To perfect the 4-level organizational system of judicial agencies from the central to grassroots levels (the Justice Ministry, the provincial-level Justice Services, the district-level Justice Sections and the commune-level Justice Boards ) along the direction of unifying organizational model and payrolls suitable to the size of each region or area, clearly defining the functions, tasks, powers and responsibilities of each level.

In 2003, to strengthen the units of the Justice Ministry on the basis of the Government’s new decree on functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of the Justice Ministry, propose to the competent agencies the reorganization of the Justice Ministry’s body(ies) managing and executing judgments after an appropriate and efficient model.

To consolidate and strengthen the district-level Justice Sections and the commune-level Justice Boards with sufficient full-time cadres who are professionally qualified and capable to assist the district- and commune-level administrations in judicial work and State management with laws. To continue building the organization and raising the capability of grassroots conciliation teams as well as collaborators in legal assistance as well as law dissemination and education;

2. To continue strengthening and stabilizing organization and stepping up operation of legal organizations of the ministries, branches and State enterprises at the central and local levels, and judicial support organizations along the direction of raising their professional capability and ethics. To be fully aware of the role of legal organizations and judicial support organizations in contribution to perfecting laws, ensuring the legislation and effecting the principle of State management with law.

3. To take initiative in building up human resources for development of the contingent of judicial cadres and judicial titles, preparing a contingent of legal experts with good professional qualifications, firm political stance and foreign language proficiency to meet the requirements of serving the international economic integration, fulfilling Vietnam’s international commitments, and for the immediate future, participating in solving complicated matters arising in investment and international trade, protecting the State’s interests, rights and legitimate interests of Vietnamese enterprises and citizens;

4. To strengthen judicial inspectorates at all levels in order to enhance the internal inspection and examination, tightly manage the observance of regulations on performance of official duties and professional operations. To tighten administrative order and discipline in agencies and units of the judicial service. To severely and promptly handle individuals and organizations that commit misconducts or violations;

5. To continue strengthening organization and raising operation efficiency of the committees for the advancement of women in the judicial service; to work out planning on female cadres, planning on professional training and fostering of the contingent of female officials and employees; to ensure the achievement of the objective of advancement of the judicial women and contribute to the general objective of advancement of Vietnamese women.

VII. RENEWING THE WORK OF TRAINING AND FOSTERING JUDICIAL PERSONNEL, TRAINING LAW BACHELORS, TRAINING PROFESSIONAL SKILLS OF JUDICIAL TITLE HOLDERS. RENEWING THE WORK OF JURISPRUDENTIAL RESEARCH

1. To organize the implementation of five action programs of Hanoi Law University, including: renewal of content of law-training curricula and methods; renewal of teaching courses and materials and jurisprudential research; building up of the teachers’ contingent and reform of managerial work; renovation of work of political and ideological education of law students; reinforcement of its resources and techno-material foundation. To build Hanoi Law University into a key university for law training;

2. To elaborate and implement schemes for raising quality of the training and employment of law bachelors after graduation from the University on the basis of surveying and evaluating the actual situation of training and efficiency of employment of law bachelors after their graduation (under National Project 877). To adopt priority policy to attract brilliant law students to apprentice and/or work in the judicial agencies;

3. To set up the system of criteria for judicial titles; to strengthen the organization and enhance the training capability of the school for judicial title holders’ training, raise the quality of professional training of judicial officials with importance attached to the improvement of professional skills and ethics. To formulate mechanisms and policies to attract judges, executors, lawyers and experienced experts to take part in lecturing and training judicial title holders. To attach importance to the education in professional ethics and capability for persons to be appointed to various judicial positions;

4. To elaborate the Regulation on exams and enrollment examination of subjects to be trained for judicial titles; to unify the framework program on basic law training, training of judicial titles, training, fostering and complement of knowledge of judicial officials and managerial officials of the judicial service, with importance attached to practical skills and more class discussions, handling of assumptive circumstances, and encouragement of learners’ creative thinking;

5. To raise the level and improve pedagogic methods of lecturers, send lecturers to study and improve their professional skills at home and abroad; to invite foreign lecturers to give lectures at schools, in experience-popularizing and professional fostering courses of the judicial service;

6. To study and propose the establishment of the Judicial Academy to unify the job training of judicial title holders.

7. To enhance the Justice Ministry’s role in jurisprudentially instructing, examining and criticizing law-teaching courses and materials;

8. To mobilize the intellectual capability of the entire service for jurisprudential research activities. To combine scientific research activities with judicial work practices and training activities of the Law University and the School for Judicial Title Holders’ Training. To widely popularize and apply jurisprudential research results as well as conclusions of professional seminars and workshops to the teaching work and practical judicial activities.

C. IMPLEMENTATION SOLUTIONS

1. Building and perfecting the judicial organizational system, apparatus and personnel contingent fully qualified for their tasks

- To review, supplement, finalize and submit to the competent agencies for promulgation regulations on functions, tasks, powers and organizational apparatus of the Justice Ministry, local judicial agencies, legal organizations and judicial support organizations, thus creating legal basis for consolidating judicial organization and raising judicial work quality. To coordinate with the concerned ministries, branches and People’s Committees of all levels in strengthening local legal organizations and judicial agencies, judicial support and legal assistance organizations;

- In three years (2002-2005), to concentrate on consolidating commune- and district-level judicial agencies, legal organizations and newly established units of the Justice Ministry. To strive for organizational and structural perfection of agencies in the judicial service by 2007;

- To totally scrutinize the contingent of officials and public employees in the entire service. To build up a contingent of fully qualified and capable judicial officials and public employees. To create marked progress in rectifying and raising the sense of responsibility of the contingent of judicial officials, firstly the contingent of leading officials, managerial officials and judicial title holders. To plan, rearrange, readjust and step by step effect the rotation of cadres to different positions suitable to capacity and level of each person. To send young public employees to local judicial agencies and legal organizations to gather practical experiences. To effect the policy and mechanism to attract human resources for training and developing law talents. To select and send talented young officials for training courses at home or abroad;

- To effect the mechanism of recruitment, examination and apprentice before appointing or appointing for definite duration, or collection of confidence votes for managerial officials and judicial title holders; to monitor and periodically appraise result of the duty performance by each official or public employee. To effect the mechanism of replacement (transfer to other positions or dismissal) of officials who fail to satisfy the working requirements. To strive for within three coming years (2003-2005) a substantial change in the contingent of judicial officials, with concrete requirements: incorruptibility, high sense of responsibility and professionalism.

2. Raising the capability to draft, evaluate, inspect and revise legal documents

- To continue renewing regulations and processes of elaborating legal documents from the programming to drafting, evaluation and promulgation thereof;

- To submit to the competent agencies for basic amendments and supplements to the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents; the Decree on promulgation of legal documents of the People’s Councils and People’s Committees, and at the same time prepare and submit as soon as possible to the National Assembly for promulgation the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents of the People’s Councils and People’s Committees;

- To formulate a mechanism for collecting and assimilating opinions of people, and agencies and units in the judicial service, the form of consulting contributed opinions or comments of foreign individuals and organizations on draft legal documents relevant to them. To take part in the drafting of the law on competence, order and procedures for signing international treaties;

- To improve the organizational mode of drafting, commenting, appraising and adopting legal documents to be promulgated by the Justice Ministry;

- To regularly review legal documents and propose in time amendments and supplements thereto or the promulgation of new documents;

- To consolidate and raise the quality of the contingent of law-making officials in the Justice Ministry, the provincial-level Justice Services, the district-level Justice Sections, legal organizations of the ministries and branches. To invest funds in elaboration of legal documents.

3. Synchronously applying solutions to ensure the strict implementation of the Prime Minister’s Directive No. 20/2001/CT-TTg of September 11, 2001 on enhancing and raising effectiveness of the work of civil judgment execution

- To promote the role of the local administrations and the combined strength of the political system at the grassroots levels in judgment execution. To step up the operation of the Steering Committees for civil judgment execution at all levels, thus ensuring that court rulings and judgments, which have taken legal effect, must be observed and strictly executed, and well carry out the work of encouraging and persuading involved parties to voluntarily execute judgments;

- In 2003, to make the general review, classification and inspection of unsettled cases and cases where exist no conditions for execution; to clearly determine the causes of non-execution of cases where conditions permit the execution thereof, and responsibilities of executors and heads of judgment-executing agencies therefor;

- To coordinate with the concerned branches and local administrations in organizing briefings and inter-branch inspections of judgment execution work in each locality and the whole country;

- To build the prevention and detection mechanism so that local administrations, people and press agencies supervise the judgment execution and the observance of the "ethical standards of executors." To handle in a stringent and timely manner judgment-executing officials who show irresponsibility or violate the professional regulations, cause troubles or commit negative acts during the judgment execution;

- To complete by 2005 the construction of offices of the judgment-executing agencies. To basically upgrade by 2007 technical equipment and working facilities of the judgment-executing agencies to the modern level and build sufficient storage for material evidences;

- To increase payroll of the judgment-executing forces with officials who are politically, ethically and professionally qualified and subject to tight management.

4. Perfecting the institutions and enhancing capability of legal assistance organizations

- To provide timely professional instructions, and remove difficulties and problems in judicial support activities;

- To formulate the mechanism of encouraging organizations and individuals to establish legal assistance organizations or participate in activities of providing legal assistance to people, especially the poor, social policy beneficiaries and ethnic minority people. To extend the legal assistance to all objects, regions and areas throughout the country;

- To establish more public notary offices and legal assistance branches; to create legal grounds for the establishment of law consultancy offices of the socio-political organizations;

- To apply appropriate forms to foster the professional skills, and knowledge about the market economy and international economic integration for lawyers, arbiters, public notaries. To apply information technology to activities of and build database on public notarization, household registration, judicial records, registration of security transactions, thus meeting the ever-growing demands of the society.

5. Perfecting and effecting the mechanism for stepping up the law propagation, dissemination and education

- To perfect and promote the coordination mechanism, attach importance to the efficiency of operation of the councils for coordination in law dissemination and education at all levels and the mechanism for inter-branch coordination between the judicial agencies and the agencies as well as socio-political organizations of the same level;

- To closely combine the law dissemination with the agitation and guidance for law observance, targeting the law dissemination and education to grassroots objects;

- To coordinate with the concerned ministries, branches and People’s Committees of all levels in forming contingents of teachers specialized in teaching the citizen education and law subjects in schools, providing basic law knowledge to 50% of teachers of these study subjects. To finalize the law education program for study grades and levels;

- To build up the contingent of law dissemination and education activists who have capability and zeal for the work;

- To raise the quality and improve the forms of law information. To establish law information and database centers in the Justice Ministry and the provincial/municipal Justice Services;

- To set up the Fund for law dissemination and education at the Justice Ministry and the local judicial agencies.

6. Consolidating material foundations, working facilities and equipment for the judicial agencies

To step by step upgrade and modernize the Hanoi Law University and the School for Judicial Title Holders’ Training, working offices, means for public-duty performance by judicial agencies, libraries and systems for archiving and supplying law information and databases .

7. Raising the sense of responsibility for examining and settling complaints and denunciations strictly according to the provisions of law

All complaints and denunciations must be examined and settled definitely right in localities where they arise; to concentrate on reviewing, classifying, settling, setting time limits and defining settling responsibilities of levels and heads of agencies or units, especially for imperative cases or cases left unsettled for a long time. To consider results of the work of complaint and denunciation settlement as criteria for appraising the responsibility and work performance result of each agency, unit and heads of units where the cases occur.

8. Continuing to step up the patriotic emulation movement in the judicial service, combining the work of emulation and commendation with the completion of key tasks for each year and the whole 2002-2007 period

- To renew the perception of the work of emulation and commendation; to amend and supplement emulation contents, criteria and targets to suit the new period’s requirements and the judicial service’s operation;

- To promptly review, commend, reward and multiply good models, good persons and goods deeds in each work domain;

- To raise the operation quality and renew the form of daily activities of emulation sections.

9. Reforming the management and administration and improving the working style

- To revise and perfect the working regulations, and thoroughly adhere to the principle that every work is performed according to the working regulations, programs and plans;

- To readjust and improve the assignment of powers and responsibilities of each level, unit heads and subordinate colleagues. To effect the principle that every duty or work must be concretely and clearly assigned and individuals shall bear responsibility for their own work results. The heads of immediate superior units shall inspect heads of the subordinate units, the unit heads shall inspect officials and employees under their charge. To attach importance to the form of self-inspection by the service’s units. To effect the form of extraordinary inspection without advance notices by superiors to subordinates;

- To renovate the coordination relationship on the principle that the prime responsibility for each work shall be assumed by one unit. The unit with the prime responsibility shall have to plan the coordination in implementation organization with the concerned units. Past the prescribed time limit, if the coordinating units make no opinions regarding the common work, the unit assuming the prime responsibility shall take initiative in proposing its opinions and take responsibility therefor;

- To continue realizing the policy of turning towards the grassroots, putting an end to the situation of delaying the replies to or failing to reply the localities’ petitions, proposals and consultations;

- To improve contents and forms of conferences, meetings and workshops, thus ensuring their practicality, conciseness and economy. To rectify the meeting participation discipline. The units under the Justice Ministry and the provincial/municipal Justice Services shall carry out the regime of periodical meetings and briefings to review the action program implementation progress, and devise measures to deploy and solve unsettled works;

- To consolidate the organization and enhance the capability of the Justice Ministry’s Office and the provincial/municipal Justice Services’ Offices, so that they can well grasp the actual situation, promptly urge, inspect and report the implementation results in service of requirements of the leadership and direction by the Justice Ministry and the provincial/municipal Justice Services.

D. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

On the basis of contents of the action program for the 2002-2007 period, according to their respective functions and tasks and under the assignment by the Minister, the vice ministers, the heads of the units under the Justice Ministry, the local judicial agencies, the legal organizations of the ministries and branches, and the judicial support organizations shall have to work out their own implementation programs and plans, and implement them within the ambit of their responsibilities according to the annual implementation schedules. Such task must be completed before April 2003.

Appraisals of the service’s Action Program implementation results shall be made annually, then the preliminary review and final review thereof shall be made in 2005 and 2007 respectively.

To seriously effect the information and reporting regime, ensuring that the Action Program shall be implemented strictly according to the set requirements and schedules.-