Comments on the draft Law on Organization of People's Courts (amended)

Ms. Thai Thi An Chung - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation and Mr. Tran Ngoc Son - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Chief Justice of Nghe An Provincial People's Court co-chaired the conference.

Attending the conference were Major General Tran Duc Thuan - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Committee for National Defense and Security, National Assembly Delegate of Nghe An province and National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province; representatives of the Provincial Fatherland Front Committee, agencies of the Internal Affairs Bloc, Lawyers' Associations, and Provincial Bar Association.

At the conference, on behalf of the provincial court sector, Chief Justice of the provincial court Tran Ngoc Son gave preliminary information on the necessity and significance of this amendment to the Law. Accordingly,Law on Organization of People's Court2014 after a period of application has revealed limitations and inadequacies. Furthermore, according to Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW dated November 9, 2022 on continuing to build and perfect the rule of law state and Resolution No. 89/2023/QH15 of the National Assembly, it is necessary to continue to perfect a number of functions of the sector. Therefore, the draft Law has been commented on and supplemented many times at the sessions.

The 4th Draft Law on Organization of People's Courts (amended) consists of 9 chapters and 151 articles, of which 51 new articles are added, 93 articles are amended, and 7 articles are kept unchanged. Compared to the 2014 Law on Organization of People's Courts, the new draft Law reduces 2 chapters and adds 54 articles.

(Excerpt from the draft Law on Organization of People's Courts, amended).

Specifically, according to the draft Law on Organization of People's Courts (amended) in 2023, there are major amendments such as stipulating additional judicial powers including the tasks and powers of the courts; perfecting the organization of the Court apparatus such as: Reorganizing the apparatus assisting the High People's Court and innovating according to the jurisdiction of the trial, according to which the Provincial People's Court is replaced by the People's Court of Appeal and the District People's Court is the People's Court of First Instance; establishing a specialized People's Court of First Instance; innovating and improving the quality of human resources of the Court; innovating the ranks and grades of judicial positions; strictly regulating the conditions and standards for appointing judicial positions such as judges and people's assessors; in addition to the direct and mobile trial forms, there is also the form of online trial, regulations on communication and information of cases after trial, etc.

At the conference, National Assembly delegates and representatives of the Provincial Police, the Provincial People's Procuracy, the Military Zone 4 Court, the Provincial Fatherland Front... added some opinions in the direction of clarifying the content of judicial power and new tasks and powers for the Court for easy understanding and the need to concretize and build a mechanism for the Court to exercise judicial power such as the right to adjudicate and decide on disputes in violation of the law; the right to interpret and apply the law and ensure the consistent application of the law in adjudication; clarifying specific cases in the specialized court system; adding the right to collect evidence for the court in administrative and civil cases to protect the rights of litigants, people with related rights and obligations who are vulnerable...

In addition to the basic opinions agreeing with the spirit of the draft, at the conference there were some opinions disagreeing with the option of naming the court according to its jurisdiction; specialized courts should not be established; it is necessary to clarify what the judicial powers of the court include to distinguish them from other judicial agencies.

On behalf of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, Ms. Thai Thi An Chung - Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation respectfully received the comments and sharing of representatives of the Provincial Fatherland Front, departments, branches, the Lawyers' Association, and the Bar Association. The viewpoint of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation is to support the early passage of this Law project at the session at the end of 2023.

Regarding the reception and synthesis of opinions, the delegation requested the Provincial Chief Justice to synthesize and report on the opinions on the vertical sector and request the provision of additional information and arguments to discuss and unify the different contents. The Office of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation will synthesize, edit, and report to the Drafting Committee for further consideration during the process of supplementing and perfecting this Law project./.