Can witnesses refuse to make testimonies in administrative proceedings in Vietnam?

Can witnesses refuse to make testimonies in administrative proceedings in Vietnam?

Pursuant to Clause 2, Article 62 of the 2015 Law on Administrative Procedures, witnesses have the following rights and obligations:

a/ To provide all information, documents and objects in their possession which are related to the settlement of cases;

b/ To honestly testify to circumstances which they know and are related to the settlement of cases;

c/ To be held responsible before law for their testimonies, and pay compensations for damage caused by their untruthful testimonies to involved parties or other persons;

d/ To be present at court and court hearings in response to court summonses in case witness testimonies must be publicly taken at court or court hearings. In case witnesses are absent from court hearings without plausible reasons and their absence impedes the trial, the trial panel may issue decisions to escort them to court hearings;

dd/ To undertake before court to exercise their rights and perform their obligations, except minor witnesses;

e/ To refuse to make testimonies if their testimonies are related to state secrets, professional secrets, business secrets or privacy secrets or badly or adversely affect involved parties who are their relatives;

g/ To take leaves during the time they are summoned by the court or make testimonies;

h/ To have relevant expenses paid in accordance with law;

i/ To request courts that have summoned them and competent state agencies to protect their lives, health, honor, dignity, property, and other lawful rights and interests when they participate in procedures;

k/ To complain about procedural acts, and denounce illegal acts of procedure-conducting agencies and persons.

According to this Article, you have the right to refuse to make testimonies in Vietnam if your testimonies have badly or adversely affect involved parties who is your friend.

What are rights and obligations of expert witnesses in administrative proceedings in Vietnam?

According to Clause 2, Article 63 of the 2015 Law on Administrative Procedures, expert witnesses have the following rights and obligations:

a/ To read documents included in case files and related to objects of expert examination; to request the court to provide documents necessary for the expert examination;

b/ To question procedure participants about matters related to objects of expert examination;

c/ To be present in response to court summonses and answer questions related to the expert examination;

d/ To notify in writing the court of the impossibility to conduct expert examination for the reason that contents necessary for expert examination fall beyond their professional capacity or documents provided for the expert examination are insufficient or unusable;

dd/ To preserve received documents and return them to the court together with expert examination conclusions or with a notice of the impossibility to conduct expert examination;

e/ To refrain from collecting documents by themselves for conducting expert examination or contacting other procedure participants if such contact might affect expert examination results; to refrain from disclosing secret information which they know while conducting expert examination or from notifying expert examination results to persons other than those who have decided to solicit expert examination opinions;

g/ To make independent, honest and grounded expert examination conclusions;

h/ To have relevant expenses paid in accordance with law;

i/ To undertake before the court to exercise their rights and perform their obligations.

Best Regards!