Vietnam: The Court will use virtual assistant software to help judges giving legal advice to people
Who is the judge? What are the duties of a judge in Vietnam?
According to Clause 1, Article 65 of the Law on Organization of People's Courts 2014, Judges are persons who fully meet the conditions and criteria prescribed by this Law and appointed by the President to perform the adjudicating duty.
According to Article 2 of the Law on Organization of People's Courts 2014 and relevant laws, duties and powers of a judge are:
"Article 2. Functions, duties and powers of people’s courts
1. People’s courts are the judicial bodies of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and exercise judicial power.
People’s courts have the duty to safeguard justice, human rights, citizens’ rights, the socialist regime, the interests of the State, and the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals.
Through their activities, courts shall contribute to educating citizens in the loyalty to the Fatherland, strict observance of law, respect for rules of social conduct and the sense of struggle to prevent and combat crimes and other violations.
2. In the name of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, courts shall adjudicate criminal, civil, marriage and family, business, commercial, labor and administrative cases and settle other matters as prescribed by law; examine documents and evidences collected in the legal process in an adequate, objective and comprehensive manner; and base themselves on results of the adversarial process to make judgments or decisions on guilt or innocence, to apply or not to apply penalties and judicial measures, or decisions regarding property rights and obligations and personal rights.
Judgments and decisions of people’s courts which have taken legal effect shall be respected by agencies, organizations and individuals and strictly observed by concerned agencies, organizations and individuals.
3. When performing the duty of adjudicating criminal cases, courts have the following powers:
a/ To examine and conclude on the legality of procedural acts and decisions of investigators, procurators and defense counsels in the course of investigation, prosecution and trial; to consider the application, change or cancellation of deterrent measures; to cease or suspend cases;
b/ To examine and conclude on the legality of evidences and documents collected by investigating agencies, investigators, procuracies and procurators; and those provided by lawyers, the accused, defendants and other procedure participants;
c/ When finding it necessary, to return case files to procuracies for additional investigation; to request procuracies to add documents and evidences, or to examine, verify, collect or add evidences in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code;
d/ To request investigators, procurators and other people to present matters related to cases at hearings; to institute criminal cases when detecting omission of crimes;
e/ To make decisions to exercise other powers in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code.
4. Courts shall verify and collect documents and evidences to settle civil, marriage and family, business, commercial, labor and administrative cases and matters, and exercise other powers as prescribed by the procedural law.
5. Courts shall handle administrative violations; consider requests of state management agencies and decide whether to apply administrative handling measures related to human rights and citizens’ fundamental rights in accordance with law.
6. Courts shall issue decisions on execution of criminal judgments, postponement of the serving of imprisonment penalty, suspension of the serving of imprisonment penalty, reduction of, or exemption from serving, penalty, remission of previous criminal convictions, exemption from or reduction of the judgment serving obligation related to state budget remittances; and exercise other powers prescribed by the Penal Code, the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments and the Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgments.
Courts shall issue decisions on postponement of, exemption from, reduction or suspension of execution of, administrative handling measures they apply, and exercise other powers prescribed by the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations.
7. During the trial of cases, courts shall detect and recommend competent agencies to consider and amend, supplement or annul legal documents which contravene the Constitution, laws or resolutions of the National Assembly, or ordinances or resolutions of the National Assembly Standing Committee in order to guarantee lawful rights and interests of individuals, agencies and organizations; and competent agencies shall reply to courts on results of handling such legal documents in accordance with law to serve as a basis for courts to settle cases.
8. Courts shall ensure the uniform application of law in trial.
9. Courts shall exercise other powers prescribed by law."
Thus, to help the Judge in performing duties and the policy of the Party Personnel Committee of the People's Supreme Court on digital transformation and building an electronic court, the People's Supreme Court has issued Plan 49/KH-TANDTC in 2022 to implement and apply virtual assistant software for court judges at all levels, specifically as follows:
What are the purposes and requirements in using Virtual Assistants to help Judges?
Purposes
- Use Virtual Assistants to work online 24/7 to support Judges to quickly look up legal documents, instructions on applying the law to specific legal situations, legal regulations, case law and the judgment has a similar legal situation for reference;
- Contribute to ensuring the correct and uniform application of the law;
- Mak the Virtual Assistant software smarter through the process of using and contributing opinions of the Court Judges.
Requirements
- Implement uniform application of Virtual Assistant software for Judges in the Court system.
- Ensure 100% of judges in the court system use virtual assistant software for professional work right after being trained on how to use it.
- The Judges actively participate in training, providing and enriching knowledge for the Virtual Assistant software through the process of using and giving suggestions.
What is the contents of using Virtual Assistants to support Judges?
+ Organize training on using Virtual Assistant software
- Preside unit: Assign the General Department of the People’s Supreme Court to be the focal point with Comrade Tong Anh Hao - former Judge of the People’s Supreme Court, Head of the Content Editing Team for the Virtual Assistant software and virtual assistant software developement unit.
- Participants attending the training: Judges, computer civil servants of courts at all levels.
- Implementation methods: Online and direct combination.
- Implementation time: Completed before April 5, 2022.
+ Regarding applying Virtual Assistant software
- Assign the General Department of the People’s Supreme Court to be the focal point responsible for: (1) Supporting the Court Judges in the process of using the software; (2) Monitor and statistics the frequency of using virtual assistant software by judges to summarize and report to the Chief Justice of the People’s Supreme Court periodically; (3) Receive and synthesize the judge's comments on the virtual assistant software and transfer it to the content editing team for processing.
- The Chief Justices of the Courts at all levels thoroughly understand that the Judges of their units and the subordinate units under their management strictly implement this Plan and actively use, contribute ideas, provide information and data. to train Virtual Assistant software.
+ Organize preliminary review, check and evaluate the implementation results of Virtual Assistant software
- Preside unit: General Department of the People’s Supreme Court.
- Coordinating unit: Courts at all levels.
- Implementation methods: Online.
- Implementation time: Completed in the fourth quarter of 2022.
How is using Virtual Assistants to help Judges conducted?
- The General Department of the People’s Supreme Court shall based on t Plan 49/KH-TANDTC to develop a specific implementation program; at the same time, assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with relevant units in, organizing the implementation of tasks in the plan.
- The Office of the People’s Supreme Court is responsible for allocating funds and other material conditions (if any) to ensure the organization and performance of the tasks in this Plan.
- Units under the People’s Supreme Court; The People's Courts at all levels shall, within the ambit of their functions and tasks, coordinate with the General Department of the People’s Supreme Court in implementing the contents of the Plan.
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