Directive No. 01/2007/CT-BTP on the implementation of key tasks for judicial work in 2007

DIRECTIVE

On the implementation of key tasks for judicial work in 2007

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The year 2007 is a year to further promote the implementation of Resolution No. 48 on the Strategy for Building and Improving the Legal System of Vietnam and Resolution No. 49 on the Strategy for Judicial Reform, as well as the first year that Vietnam implements its commitments as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In order to successfully fulfill the judicial work tasks for 2007, to continue to make significant progress in judicial work, and to serve the requirements of national development in the new period, the Minister of Justice issues the following directive:

1. Deeply grasp the spirit and content of the 10th National Party Congress Resolution and the resolutions of Party congresses at all levels to unify understanding and action throughout the sector, each unit, and each individual. Based on the Action Program of the Ministry of Justice to implement the 10th National Party Congress Resolution, units under the Ministry, local judicial agencies, and legal institutions of ministries, sectors, and localities complete the specific work plans of their units and implement them.

2. Vigorously carry out the work of drafting, reviewing, inspecting, and systematizing normative legal documents to positively contribute to building and improving the legal system of Vietnam, meeting the requirements of administrative reform, judicial reform, and international economic integration.

The entire sector and legal institutions of ministries, sectors, and localities must concentrate all resources to complete the Law and Ordinance Drafting Program for 2007 of the National Assembly, the Government's Work Program, ensuring the quality and progress of document drafting, continuing to focus on building and perfecting the institutional framework regarding the organization and operation of the sector. Along with drafting laws and ordinances, the main drafting units must simultaneously prepare guiding documents to ensure the synchronization of laws and ordinances when they come into effect. Link the drafting of laws with their enforcement, take measures to inspect, monitor, evaluate, and summarize the implementation of normative legal documents that have been issued, especially those drafted by the Ministry of Justice and those within the sector’s management authority. Promote the proactive role of legal institutions of ministries, sectors in monitoring the enforcement of laws they primarily draft.

Significantly improve the quality of normative legal document reviews and accelerate the review process. Review opinions must clearly express viewpoints and proposals for specific solutions to issues with differing opinions, ensuring that review opinions are valuable in enhancing the quality of legislative work.

Study and build a proposal to improve the procedures for drafting and promulgating normative legal documents towards minimizing procedures, eliminating overlapping or vague situations, shortening the time for drafting and promulgating documents compared to the current situation, to be submitted to the Government in the third quarter of 2007, linked with the drafting of the Law on Enacting Normative Legal Documents (Amended).

Continue to improve the institutional framework for inspecting normative legal documents at ministries, sectors, and localities, while actively and comprehensively implementing all aspects of inspection work, focusing both on breadth and depth. Concentrate on inspecting certain topics and fields with many concerns such as land, environment, household registration, recruitment and use of civil servants, education and training... Organize inter-ministerial inspection teams to inspect on-site in some areas with many directly related documents affecting people's daily lives; strengthen guidance, urging, and monitoring the handling of illegal documents discovered. Focus on completing the organization and activities of the Inspection Bureau of Normative Legal Documents and specialized inspection units at legal institutions of ministries, sectors, and local judicial agencies.

Vigorously promote regular reviews and periodic systematization of normative legal documents at ministries, sectors, and localities in accordance with regulations, while selecting certain fields to focus on directing implementation; study and gradually improve the institutional framework regarding the authority, procedures, and processes for reviewing and systematizing normative legal documents.

3. Enhance the role of civil execution work, ensuring the strictness of the law, contributing to protecting the interests of the State, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens. In 2007, strive to fully execute 75% of cases and 55% of money in cases that are executable. Focus on resolving accumulated civil cases. Strengthen the resolution of complaints and denunciations about civil execution, particularly long-standing and contentious cases.

Vigorously implement administrative reform in civil execution work, build and perfect reasonable and scientific procedures for handling work, linking with thrift, anti-waste, anti-corruption, and anti-neglect in civil execution agencies.

Continue to improve organizational structures, supplement staffing, invest in material infrastructure and equipment for civil execution agencies to meet requirements and tasks. Accelerate the implementation of projects on material infrastructure, construction of offices and warehouses for seized property of civil execution agencies that have been approved.

Pay attention to improving the quality of guidance, supervision, inspection, and urging of civil execution work by the Civil Execution Bureau and provincial-level civil execution agencies based on the principle of emphasizing responsibility and promoting the initiative of lower-level civil execution agencies. Strengthen coordination with relevant agencies at central and local levels, study and build joint Circulars between the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuracy to resolve difficulties in civil execution work.

Strengthen regular and surprise inspections of civil execution activities, especially in places where there are prolonged complaints or media reports indicating signs of corruption and misconduct; promptly detect and strictly handle violations.

4. Enhance the work of disseminating and educating the law to contribute to raising public awareness and consciousness in complying with the law, meeting the requirements for building a socialist rule-of-law state and integrating into the international economy. Continue to intensify the implementation of Directive No. 32-CT/TW dated December 9, 2003 of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Summarize the Law Dissemination and Education Program of the Government for the period 2003-2007, continue to implement the National Action Program on Law Dissemination and Education and Enhancing Consciousness in Complying with the Law for cadres and people at communes, wards, and towns from 2005 to 2010.

Develop the content of law dissemination and education in 2007 closely aligned with practical needs, suitable for different target groups; focus on promoting and disseminating contents related to economic integration, laws directly affecting people's lives and receiving social attention, such as anti-corruption, thrift, anti-waste, traffic safety, drug prevention... Strengthen the implementation of law dissemination and education at grassroots levels while enhancing supervision over law dissemination and education activities at provincial and district levels towards commune levels. Improve the quality of law dissemination and education activities, overcome formalism in these activities.

5. Vigorously enhance and improve the effectiveness of legal aid work. Proactively implement the Legal Aid Law and Directive No. 35/2006/CT-TTg dated October 13, 2006 of the Prime Minister on implementing the Legal Aid Law. Continue to strengthen the organization, staffing, and material infrastructure of Legal Aid Centers and Branches. Intensify legal aid activities in remote and difficult areas. Increase mobile legal aid services. Pay attention to improving the forms and methods of legal aid.

6. Vigorously reform administrative procedures in the notarization, civil status registration, nationality, and criminal record fields to make these activities truly user-friendly. Proactively prepare conditions for effectively implementing the Notarization Law and the Decree on Authentication (when issued by the Government); guide and strictly manage the establishment and operation of Notary Offices. Enhance the effectiveness of state management over marriage and family relations involving foreign elements. Prepare theoretical and practical foundations to propose amendments and supplements to the Nationality Law.

Strengthen the cadre working in administrative justice, particularly judicial cadres at commune level; increase training, guidance, and professional development for this group while enhancing their spirit and attitude in serving the people. Strengthen inspection and supervision over the compliance with regulations on civil status, nationality, and criminal records by relevant agencies, resolutely combat corruption and harassment when handling citizens' requests.

7. Enhance the effectiveness of state management over auxiliary judicial activities. Vigorously implement the Lawyers Law, strengthen state management over lawyers, promptly detect and correct negative behaviors in lawyers' activities and legal advice. Urgently promote the establishment of a national lawyers organization after the project is approved by competent authorities. Focus on building a sufficient number of lawyers who are proficient in their field, have good moral character, and strong professional integrity. Draft a proposal for the Government on training excellent lawyers and experts to serve economic integration.

Continue to build and perfect the legal foundation for asset auction activities to ensure autonomy and responsibility for organizational structure, staffing, and finance applicable to units in the asset auction sector.

Strengthen and modernize the material infrastructure and equipment for appraisal institutions; study and propose reasonable policies and systems to encourage both material and spiritual incentives to attract excellent experts to participate in judicial appraisals. Study the implementation of the policy of socializing judicial appraisal activities.

8. Intensify and modernize the material infrastructure and equipment for Registration Centers under the National Register of Security Transactions to soon implement online registration through electronic networks. Summarize the practical experience of five years of implementing security transaction registration and state management of security transaction registration (2002-2007). Continue to build and perfect the institutional framework for security transaction registration and property registration to meet the needs of economic and social development.

9. Continue to vigorously promote international cooperation in judiciary and law based on ensuring independence, sovereignty, national security, adherence to the Constitution, laws, customs, and traditions of the nation. Effectively utilize external resources to contribute to fulfilling the political tasks of the sector.

Actively coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors in advising and proposing to the Government on signing international treaties, focusing on preparing legal conditions for signing bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. Concentrate on reviewing, proactively proposing, and coordinating with relevant agencies to study amendments, supplements, and new issuance of regulatory legal documents to fulfill Vietnam's commitments to the World Trade Organization.

Strengthen state management over the activity of Vietnamese children being adopted by foreigners, take strict measures to monitor and supervise to ensure the humanitarian nature of Vietnamese children being adopted by foreigners. Prepare well the conditions to strictly implement obligations as a member when joining the Hague Convention of 1993 on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption.

10. Continue to improve the organizational structure and personnel of judicial agencies at all levels, especially at the district and commune levels. Promote decentralization, enhance operational capacity in conjunction with the autonomy and responsibility of units. Emphasize the initiative of Provincial Justice Departments in guiding and directing professional activities for local judicial work. Build a reasonable cadre structure, improve professional competence, awareness of public service, and social responsibility of cadres and civil servants. Strengthen training for judicial and legal system cadres and staff in accordance with job standards and positions, develop practical and effective training plans. Study and draft a proposal on the allocation, utilization, and rotation of judicial cadres.

Enhance inspection and supervision of professional conduct, compliance with laws by cadres and civil servants in the judicial sector; promptly detect and strictly handle violations of law, corruption, harassment, and causing inconvenience to the people. Promote thrift and combat waste; resolutely fight against corruption.

11. Continue to consolidate and improve the organization and enhance the effectiveness of operations of legal departments at ministries, sectors, and localities, particularly legal departments under specialized agencies of provincial People's Committees and state-owned enterprises. Strengthen working relationships between units under the Ministry of Justice and legal departments, promote professional guidance for legal departments at ministries, sectors, and localities. Urgently prepare to successfully organize the second term Legal Department Enterprise Club Congress by the end of the first quarter of 2007.

12. Gradually expand the scale of basic law education and vocational training in line with practical needs and the capabilities of educational institutions, while improving the quality of basic law education and vocational training to meet the requirements for high-quality human resources serving judicial reform, building a socialist-oriented market economy, and integrating into the international economy.

Conduct a comprehensive, objective, and accurate review and evaluation of the practical work of basic law education at Hanoi Law University and vocational training at the Judicial Academy to prepare for drafting a strategic plan for training legal cadres across the entire judicial sector, clearly defining training needs, timelines, and implementation plans. Develop a training plan for enhancing the quality of faculty at Hanoi Law University and the Judicial Academy. Continue to innovate curricula, textbooks, and reference materials; supplement knowledge on economic integration; improve teaching methods; focus on equipping students with skills in analyzing and applying laws to solve practical cases; closely monitor and ensure the quality of the training process from admission to certification; resolutely combat negative phenomena in training.

Based on the key tasks outlined in this Directive, heads of units under the Ministry, legal departments of ministries and sectors, and Directors of Provincial Justice Departments within their functional, duty, and authority scope shall be responsible for organizing the implementation, developing implementation plans (to be completed by February 2007), and reporting to the leadership of ministries, sectors, and People's Committees for approval and direction. Heads of units under the Ministry, legal departments of ministries and sectors, and Directors of Provincial Justice Departments shall be responsible for inspecting the implementation of this Directive at the end of the second and fourth quarters of 2007, and submitting written reports on the implementation results to the Minister of Justice, Ministers, heads of ministries and sectors, and Chairmen of provincial and central city People's Committees.

The Director of the Office shall submit the Inspection Plan for Implementing the Directive to the Minister for approval, and monitor, urge, and compile the situation of implementation to report to the Minister.

This Directive takes effect fifteen days after its publication in the Official Gazette./.