Do legally-aided persons have right to complain about failure to provide legal aid services in Vietnam?

Do legally-aided persons have right to complain about failure to provide legal aid services in Vietnam?

Article 45 of the Law on Legal Aid 2017 regulates settlement of complaints and denunciations, specifically as follows:

1. Legally-aided persons may lodge complaints about the following acts of legal aid-providing organizations, legal aid-providing persons when having grounds to believe that those acts are unlawful acts or infringe upon their legitimate rights and interests:

a) Refuse to accept legal aid-related cases;

b) Fail to provide legal aid services;

c) Provide illegal legal aid services;

d) Change legal aid-providing person illegally.

2. Heads of legal aid-providing organizations shall settle complaints about acts specified in Clause 1 this Article within 03 working days after receiving the complaints. If the complainants disagree with complaint-settlement decisions of heads of legal aid-providing organizations or upon the expiration of the deadline but the complaint is not resolved, they may further lodge their complaints to the Director of Department of Justice.

Director of Department of Justice shall settle complaints within 15 days after receiving them. Decisions on complaint settlement of the director of Department of Justice shall be valid. If the complainants disagree with the decisions of the director of Department of Justice or upon the expiration of the deadline but the complaint is not resolved, they may file a lawsuit in court.

3. Organizations and individuals may complaint or file a lawsuit about disciplining decisions, decisions on administrative violation sanctions and other administrative decisions, acts in legal aid in according with the law on complaints and other relevant provisions.

4. Individuals may denounce violations of this Law to competent state agencies. Denunciations and settlement of denunciations shall comply with the law on denunciations.

Thus, you have the right to complain about the failure to provide legal aid services to the Director of the Legal Aid Center for resolution. If you do not agree with the Center Director's decision to resolve the complaint or the complaint is not resolved after the deadline, you have right to complain to the Director of the Department of Justice.

Do legally-aided persons have right to complain about failure to provide legal aid services in Vietnam? (Image from the Internet)

What are principles for allocating and using costumes for legal aid-providing persons in Vietnam?

According to Article 3 of Joint Circular 58/2014/TTLT-BTC-BTP stipulating principles for distributing and using costumes, as follows:

1. The allocation and use of costumes must comply with standards, purposes, target audiences, and within the prescribed time limit. State legal aid centers must open books to monitor the allocation and use of costumes to each legal aid-providing person to ensure accuracy and compliance with regulations.

2. Legal aid-providing persons are provided with costumes to use when performing legal aid activities and are responsible for maintaining and preserving the costumes according to regulations.

In case the provided outfit is damaged or lost due to objective reasons, additional clothing will be provided. In case the issued clothing is damaged or lost due to no objective reasons, the individual must make their own clothing to ensure the clothing requirements according to the regulations of the Ministry of Justice on clothing models for legal aid-providing persons to used when providing legal aid.

3. In cases of retirement, disability, or transfer to another job where the issued uniform has not yet expired, it does not have to be revoked; If the expiration date has expired and it has not yet been issued, it will not be issued.

4. For cases of forced resignation and other leave, the badge and clothing issued before quitting must be revoked.

5. Based on specific conditions, after obtaining the unanimous opinion of the Director of the Department of Justice and on the basis of the price appraised by the competent authority, the Director of the State Legal Aid Center shall consider form of providing costumes for legal aid-providing persons, it is possible to decide to provide money for legal aid-providing persons to buy their own costumes in accordance with regulations of the Ministry of Justice on standards, form, color, and style. 

In case of granting money to legal aid-providing persons to buy their own costumes, the payment document is a list of the issued costumes and the unit price of each outfit that has been appraised by the competent authority.

According to this Article, legal aid-providing persons will be provided with uniforms according to the regulations mentioned above in Vietnam.

Best regards!