Authorities are ready to correct mistakes to end the incident.

From 2014 to 2017, the province received 29,769 citizens with 14,128 cases, including 26 large groups. The number of petitions of all kinds received was 27,700, of which 2,968 were complaints (10.7%); 2,057 were denunciations (7.4%); 22,675 were petitions, reflections, and land disputes (81.9%).

Up to now, all levels and sectors have resolved 95.09% of cases, including many complicated mass complaints that have been resolved in a reasonable manner, such as: the complaint of citizens at Ben Thuy Stevedoring Cooperative; households affected by the construction of the Sao River Tunnel...

This is a major change, bringing many lessons in consulting, coordinating, directing, listening and absorbing people's opinions.

The provincial citizen reception session on January 15, 2018 was chaired by Mr. Huynh Thanh Dien - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.

Problems and obstacles

However, in addition to the achieved results, the work of receiving citizens and handling complaints and denunciations still has many shortcomings and inadequacies. Specifically, although the Law on Reception of Citizens stipulates the responsibility of receiving citizens periodically and suddenly by Chairmen of People's Committees at all levels and heads of specialized agencies.

However, in reality, for many objective reasons, top leaders rarely participate in receiving citizens and instead arrange for their deputies to take turns. Therefore, the work of directing and handling many complicated cases is limited.

At the district level, according to regulations, there is only one Head of the People Reception Committee, no Deputy Head, so there is no replacement in case of need. At the commune level, there is no dedicated staff for people reception, but instead, part-time civil servants are arranged, most of whom are untrained and inexperienced.

Coordination in receiving and handling petitions between Party agencies, National Assembly Delegation, People's Council, People's Committee, Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee... is not good.

Besides, the awareness of law compliance of a part of the people is still limited. Although many cases have been resolved reasonably and sympathetically, citizens still deliberately do not accept it, often go to government agencies to complain, denounce, and even have negative reactions.

Lawyers at Nghe An Newspaper Legal Aid Office provide legal advice to people. Photo: Document

For example, the case of Mr. Tran Van Thanh, Nghi Tien commune, Nghi Loc, petitioned for the issuance of a land use right certificate, but the People's Committee of the commune changed the case to a land dispute between citizens and the People's Committee of the commune; the case of Mr. Ngo Sy Trung - Ngo Sy Nghia, Dien Chau, was essentially a land dispute and needed to be resolved by the People's Court, but was classified and resolved by the district level as a complaint about the issuance of a land use right certificate.

There are some cases where the competent authorities try to resolve the task without paying attention to the comprehensiveness and nature of the case; some cases wrongly determine the authority, do not resolve all the content, resolve the symptoms but do not completely resolve the root cause and have to be resolved again, causing waste of human resources and State budget.

For example, the complaint of Mr. Nguyen Huy Ha (Vinh City), the complaint of households along the Lam River road (Nam Dan), when the first complaint was resolved, the complaint content was not fully resolved, so it had to be resolved many times.

In the case of Mr. Nguyen Tan Phuc (Nam Dan), the first settlement only resolved the content of the land compensation complaint, not paying attention to the root of the problem which was the wrong land recovery decision, and in the end had to be cancelled to be re-settled from the beginning; in the case of Mr. Nguyen Xuan Hy - Vinh, the wrong authority was determined, forcing the cancellation of the complaint settlement decisions to be re-settled....

In addition, the situation of incorrect procedures and avoidance still occurs. In many cases, when the resolution process encounters difficulties and obstacles, subordinates send written requests to superiors for opinions and consider that they have fulfilled their responsibilities, and only when there is a written response will the resolution continue.

The application of the law in decisions to resolve complaints and land disputes also has many errors such as inaccurate references to legal regulations; not providing legal basis but basing directly on the instructions of superiors...

Willing to make amends to end the matter

To do a good job of receiving citizens and handling complaints and denunciations, Citizen Reception Committees at all levels need to coordinate well with the police and local authorities to grasp information about incidents that may cause reactions from many people in order to promptly advise on solutions right from the start.

For complicated cases, the task of presiding over consultation and resolution should be assigned to organizations and individuals who do not directly advise, issue, or implement administrative decisions and administrative acts that are complained or denounced in order to ensure objectivity and avoid being influenced by approaches formed during previous implementation.

In addition, in the process of issuing administrative decisions and resolving complaints and denunciations, errors can always occur due to many different reasons. Heads of localities and units need to be ready to re-evaluate the problem to correct mistakes and resolve it correctly to end the case, not to resolve it beyond their authority.

For complicated cases with many inconsistent opinions, it is necessary to organize extended meetings with the participation of sectors, localities, judicial agencies, lawyers, experts... to discuss handling options.

In addition, it is necessary to improve the apparatus for receiving citizens and handling complaints and denunciations; have preferential policies in planning, promoting and appointing the team working in receiving citizens and inspection to attract good and experienced cadres. Increase the opening of short-term professional training courses, training, and seminars to share experiences for the team working in receiving citizens and inspection, participating in handling complaints and denunciations to gradually improve the quality and skills of this team.

Make the criteria for the results of receiving citizens, handling complaints and denunciations the top criteria when ranking the emulation of organizations and individuals, contributing to raising the spirit and responsibility of unit heads and local leaders in receiving citizens, handling and resolving citizens' petitions.