Vietnam: Guidelines for citizen reception, settling complaints in judicial activities

Vietnam: Guidelines for citizen reception, settling complaints in judicial activities (Internet image)

On December 30, 2022, the Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam issued Instruction 38/HD-VKSTC on citizen reception, supervision and settlement of complaints and denunciations in judicial activities in 2023.

1. Citizen reception, receipt, processing, and management of applications in Vietnam

- The Procurator General of the People's Procuracy at all levels pays close attention to and directs the reception of citizens, strictly implementing the regulations on the responsibilities of the Procurator of the People's Procuracy in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Citizen Reception and the regulations of the branch.

Associating regular citizen reception with propaganda, dissemination, and interpretation of the law, hold dialogues when settling complaints and denunciations within their competence, especially for complicated, pressing, and prolonged cases.

- Units that supervise and settle complaints and denunciations in judicial activities receive citizens regularly and coordinate with relevant professional units in determining the time to receive citizens.
for each specific case in order to promptly and definitively settle complaints and denunciations.

- Enhancing the responsibilities of the procurement officers in receiving, classifying, processing, and managing applications to ensure they are timely, complete, close, and accurate, without affecting the time limit for processing applications under their jurisdiction.

With the characteristics of complaints and denunciations, a lot is received but little is dealt with under the jurisdiction to deal with little.Therefore, special attention should be paid to the classification and handling of complaints and denunciations in judicial activities to serve the supervision of the settlement.

- Strictly managing application receipt, classification, and processing for the Party, State, National Assembly, National Assembly deputies, National Assembly delegations, and People's Councils;The Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee and the press agencies moved to and urged the relevant units and departments to announce the results or the settlement progress to the application-transferring agencies and petitioners; provide a monthly report on the Supreme People's Procuracy (through Department 12);

2. The settlement of complaints and denunciations in judicial activities falls within its competence in Vietnam

- Paying attention to the work of officials working in consultation and settlement of complaints and denunciations within their competence, People's Procuracy at all levels should assign experienced staff to take the lead and advise on the settlement.

- In the process of settling complaints and denunciations within their competence, people's procuracies at all levels should pay attention to strictly comply with their competence, order, and procedures and ensure the contents of settlement documents; proactively advise on the final settlement of complaints and denunciations; avoid urgent or prolonged lawsuits due to delayed settlement or affecting the settlement progress of related cases; and at the same time, accumulate violations during the complaint settlement process to make recommendations and notify requests for general lessons learned.

- Strengthening monitoring, inspection, and guidance of lower-level people's procuracy in handling complaints and denunciations within its competence; focus on complaints about injustice and omission of crimes; promptly detect errors and violations for immediate remedial action; minimize the error of the effective complaint settlement decision until the competent procuracy re-checks it, discovers it, requests correction, or cancels it, causing difficulties for the next settlement process.

- In the case of a complicated complaint or denunciation case that has received public attention or the recommendations of numerous competent agencies, the settlement process should include a dialogue with the complainant or denouncer; thereby combining with the explanation and propaganda to raise legal awareness so that complainants and denunciators respect and abide by the settlement results of the People's Procuracy, limit complaints that are over-leveled and prolonged, and, in case of difficulties and complications in handling and settlement, promptly report and request the superior Procuracy.

3. The inspection of the complaint settlement decision has taken legal effect in Vietnam

- Competent People's Procuracy continues to seriously and effectively inspect the legally effective complaint settlement decision, considering this an effective measure to control injustice, wrongdoing, and omission of criminals.

- Provincial-level People's Procuracy shall coordinate with judicial agencies (investigative agencies, courts) to develop a mechanism to provide relevant dossiers and documents upon request for research; the assessment of evidence is objective and comprehensive in order to improve the efficiency of the examination of the legally effective complaint settlement decision.

- Improve coordination between the Procurement and Application Handling Unit and relevant professional units to advise and propose legal solutions to applications.

- If it is discovered through inspection that the complaint settlement decision violates the law, the procuracy competent to examine has canceled the complaint settlement decision in order to request the re-settlement of the case in accordance with the law, and it must monitor and urge the implementation.

If it is found that the lower-level procedure-conducting agency fails to implement or continues to issue settlement decisions that are groundless, illegal, and show signs of crime infringing upon judicial activities, promptly transfer information and documents to the investigating agency of the Supreme People's Procuracy for consideration and handling according to its competence.

More details can be found in Instruction 38/HD-VKSTC dated December 30, 2022.

Nhu Mai

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