Preventing injustice and mistakes in judicial reform

(Baonghean) - In recent times, in professional conferences or forums, people have talked a lot about judicial reform as an objective and urgent requirement in real life. And in judicial activities, one of the indispensable requirements is objectivity, impartiality, fairness and compliance with the law.

The activities of judicial agencies in our country have had many positive changes, contributing to the effective resolution of disputes in society, ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of the parties. However, these activities have also revealed many limitations and weaknesses, leading to violations with serious consequences and very difficult to correct and overcome.

A typical case is the case of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Chan, residing in Me village, Nghia Trung commune, Viet Yen district, Bac Giang province, who was wrongly convicted of murder in 2003 and it was not until November 4, 2013, that is, after 10 years of serving his sentence, that the leaders of the Supreme People's Procuracy, the General Department of Judicial Enforcement and Support (Ministry of Public Security), and the Bac Giang Provincial People's Procuracy announced the decision to temporarily suspend the execution of the sentence. And as the folk saying goes, "waiting for trouble, your cheeks will be swollen", after 10 years of suffering injustice, not only was his personal honor and dignity violated, but his entire family, from his wife, children to his relatives, had to live in humiliation.

Nothing can compensate for the material and especially the mental losses that he and his family have suffered during all this time. This unjust case has shocked public opinion in the country and even abroad. And even more dangerous is that similar unjust and wrongful cases, if they happen too often and too seriously, will erode people's trust in the regime, leading to reactions that go beyond control and cause social instability.

Therefore, when talking about judicial reform, the Document of the 9th National Congress of Delegates affirmed: Reforming the organization, improving the quality and operation of judicial agencies, enhancing the sense of responsibility of judicial agencies and officers in the work of investigation, arrest, detention, prosecution, trial, and execution of judgments, to prevent wrongful convictions from occurring. Therefore, judicial reform needs to pay more attention to preventing wrongful convictions and errors in criminal proceedings (TTHS). And to effectively prevent wrongful convictions and errors in TTHS, it is necessary to first identify the causes of wrongful convictions and errors in order to have effective prevention solutions. And this is also one of the important tasks of current judicial reform in our country. According to the results of investigation and research by judicial experts, there are five causes of wrongful convictions and errors in TTHS.

Firstly, due to the fact that the provisions of criminal law and the law on administrative procedures are not strict and not yet complete. This is considered the fundamental cause leading to the situation of injustice and mistakes in administrative procedures because there are still many unclear, tight and incomplete provisions, there are no unified guiding documents and there is no clear boundary between crime and non-crime, with violations of administrative, civil, economic laws, etc.

Second, due to the weak professional capacity and weak legal knowledge of some people conducting the proceedings. This leads to confusion, one-sided judgment, and the case assessment is not based on the elements constituting the crime to consider the defendant's behavior; and does not fully grasp all the regulations related to the elements constituting this crime.

Third, due to the failure to ensure the full and proper implementation of the principle of independence of the court and of other agencies and persons conducting proceedings. This means that when adjudicating, it is essential that the court is independent, not bound or influenced by anyone's opinion or the viewpoint of any agency.

Fourth, due to intentional violations of the law, socialist legal system, and violations of the principle of legal fairness. It can be said that this is the underlying cause and is closely linked to other “negative” factors in the system or is caused by “achievement disease”. Fifth, due to the impact of subjective and objective groups of causes. The wrongful conviction of citizen Nguyen Thanh Chan as mentioned above is most likely caused by the second and fourth causes.

Solutions to overcome these causes are proposed by experts, including: Continuing to improve the provisions of the current Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as promptly issuing documents providing full guidance on inconsistent provisions to serve the practical investigation, prosecution, and trial, not to wrongfully convict innocent people, not to let criminals and offenders escape. Along with that is improving the professional capacity, profession, legal knowledge, political capacity, and ethics of judicial officers, especially those conducting proceedings.

Ensure the good and strict implementation of the principle of independence of the courts, agencies and litigants. Innovate the work of the Procuracy in criminal proceedings and democratize criminal proceedings to ensure democratic debate in criminal proceedings, in order to respect and protect citizens' rights. This is a fundamental step to overcome bureaucracy in criminal proceedings, as well as to serve the requirements of democracy and equality in criminal proceedings with the participation and supervision of society over the criminal proceedings of criminal proceedings agencies.

Focusing on implementing those solutions well to gradually limit and completely eliminate factors and causes leading to injustice and mistakes in criminal proceedings is one of the basic and important steps for the judicial reform to be successful.

Duy Huong