When reporting to Vietnam’s highest legislative body National Assembly (NA) on the morning of Nov 6 regarding the results of implementing the resolutions of the NA on supervision and questioning during the 14th term and a number of resolutions during the 13th tenure, Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court Nguyen Hoa Binh, said that criminal cases were tried to ensure the right person, right crime, right law, not discovered cases of unjust conviction of innocent people.
Speaking with RFA on the evening of the same day, lawyer Nguyen Van Hau, chairman of the Vietnam Lawyers’ Arbitration Center, commented on the speech of the head of the Supreme People’s Court as follows:
“I see that the Chief Justice’s report to the National Assembly is a summary of the court work. I think his report is not corrected and not convinced.”
Lawyer Dang Dinh Manh from Saigon expressed his surprise at Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh’s statement:
“It seems he fails to get full information about the criminal justice situation. In recent years, there have been a lot of wrongful cases, moreover, the wrongful cases have been acknowledged, widely reported by the press. Don’t understand why he said the court never had such an injustice. For example, the case of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Chan or Han Duc Long, quite a lot, in the short term I have not been able to tell but the statistics are approximately 10 cases.”
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Chan was convicted of killing and sentenced to a life imprisonment. He was released from prison after 10 years in prison on November 5, 2013.
Then, on December 20, 2016, Mr. Han Duc Long who has been sentenced to death four times by courts in Vietnam with charges of murder and rape of children was released after 11 years of unjustly imprisonment.
Most recently, the People’s Procuracy of Tay Ninh province on the morning of October 12 gave compensation to victims who were unfairly jailed for 41 years in the case of “Stealing private property of citizens” with the amount of up to more than VND6 billion. The unjust case just mentioned resulted in the arrest of the whole family of eight people at the end of July 1979. Two people who died did not receive any compensation.
Commenting on the current situation of injustice in Vietnam, LS. Dang Dinh Manh said the injustice was not so often that it happened too often, but not a few. He continued:
“In the cases that I am involved in defending, most of which are related to crimes of violating national security, I see most signs of the injustice of one type or another. Most recently, the Dong Tam case, although not a political case, can also be considered as an injustice case, even at a rather heavy level when many procedural regulations are not guaranteed, for example, a police investigation in the case.”
During the Dong Tam trial that took place on September 14, the Hanoi People’s Court issued a ruling against 29 people in the cases of “Murdering” and “resisting on-duty state officials” that took place at the dawn of January 9, 2020, in Hoanh village, Dong Tam commune, Hanoi.
Specifically, 6 people have been charged with “murder” in which, two people were executed, Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc, both are sons of local communal leader Le Dinh Kinh. Mr. Le Dinh Doanh, a grandson of Le Dinh Kinh, received a life sentence. Mr. Bui Viet Hieu- 16 years in prison, Nguyen Quoc Tien- 13 years in prison and Nguyen Van Tuyen- 12 years in prison.
The remaining 23 defendants received sentences from 15 months of suspended prison to 6 years in prison for “resisting on-duty state officials.”
Therefore, when commenting on Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh’s statement on November 6 before the National Assembly, Ms. Oanh, a resident of Dong Tam, commented:
“The Dong Tam incident is 100% wrong. Even the trial said one way and another, now even the Chief Justice said very well, but the actions were completely opposite and had no truth. So now when you talk, you listen to each other and people don’t listen, people are annoyed.”
Another case that is of public concern is Ho Duy Hai’s case that his family complained about for more than decades. Young Ho Duy Hai, in Long An, was arrested and sentenced to death under the charge of “murder, robbery of property” at all three first instance, appellate, and cassation trials.
Notably, a series of mistakes during the investigation, pointed out by lawyers and observers, but the judges did not pay attention, so it did not change the trial results.
To add more information about this case from a legal perspective, lawyer Dang Dinh Manh said:
“Ho Duy Hai case is not recognized as a wrongful case but through the trial process of many court levels, even at the last level in which the Judicial Council of 17 supreme judges reviewed the case. However, the public themselves also pointed out a series of wrongdoings that one of those mistakes makes the case wrongful.”
Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau said that Ho Duy Hai case will continue in the coming time:
“I think that to conclude whether a person is guilty or not, when the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court answers to the National Assembly, especially Ho Duy Hai case in the past time, at the National Assembly’s session. In June, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh also said it, I did not repeat this, but I found that in the legal regulations of Vietnam, the proceeding agencies need to learn from experience that they must follow the regulations of the Criminal Law Proceedings.”
Lawyer Hau said that there are regulations in the law, but recently, the procedure-conducting agencies have not performed well. He said that what he just said is the judiciary’s shortcoming and needs to be overcome.
According to lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, in order to reduce the situation of injustice, the prerequisite must be ensured for the court’s trial system to be independent.
“Both the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code stipulate that the Court only obey the law, besides not complying with resolutions or anything else. In fact, everyone knows that the court system is not independent and they are mostly under the direction of organizations such as the Regulatory Board, which are composed of procedural bodies. Before considering a case, the main body will review the case first. Almost such meetings have directed and given the direction of the trial, so the court has lost its independence.”
Therefore, lawyer Manh said that in order to ensure independence, there must be impact at the highest levels of leadership.
In the report of the Vietnam Judicial Committee released in November 2019, the investigation of the report of the Supreme People’s Procuracy states that the number of cases of injustice is said to have increased by 58% over the same period in 2018.
Meanwhile, in the National Assembly discussion session in mid-June, some legislators also warned that confidence in Vietnam’s judiciary is being weakened.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
