Court finds it difficult to recover tens of thousands of billions of dong after corruption trial

At the National Assembly's question-and-answer session on the morning of March 20, delegate Pham Van Hoa (Dong Thap) questioned the implementation of legal policies in the execution of judgments and the recovery of corrupt assets. Although in recent times, the recovery of assets in corruption cases has made progress, the recovery of assets is still low, not meeting the expectations of the National Assembly and the people.

"In the coming time, how will the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court coordinate with relevant agencies to recover a large number of corrupt assets and achieve people's expectations?", the delegate asked.

Answering the above question, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court Nguyen Hoa Binh emphasized that in the world and in our country, corrupt assets have never been completely recovered.

Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court Nguyen Hoa Binh (Photo: QH)

Mr. Binh said that recently, the prosecution agencies have coordinated very well with each other, so the recovery rate of corrupt assets has reached 40%. This is a very remarkable number, commendable by the prosecution agencies.

According to regulations, corrupt assets can only be recovered if the prosecution agencies (Police, Procuracy, Court) can prove that the assets come from corrupt sources. If they cannot prove this, it will be very difficult to recover.

Therefore, during the investigation, prosecution and trial process, the prosecution agencies must improve quality and promptly freeze assets showing signs of corruption.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court said that, in the world, corruption is a specific crime, so in addition to proving the origin of assets, they also have a mechanism to increase the accountability of corruption suspects.

"If the legal origin of the assets cannot be proven, they will be considered corrupt assets and will be confiscated," Mr. Binh emphasized.

According to the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, when amending the Law on Anti-Corruption, the National Assembly's Judicial Committee also raised the above issue. If it can be done like other countries, the rate of recovering corrupt assets will be very high.

Explaining why the verdict is difficult to enforce, according to Mr. Binh, there are two reasons. One is that the verdict is unclear, making it difficult to enforce. However, the rate of unclear verdicts has been greatly improved.

There are judgments that are clear and correct, but cannot be enforced. For example, in the case of Trustbank (Construction Bank), Ms. Hua Thi Phan caused the bank to lose more than 10,000 billion VND.

"The court was forced to order Ms. Phan to pay compensation for that amount. But after the decision, Ms. Phan passed away. This is a legal judgment, and it was impossible not to order Ms. Phan to pay compensation," Mr. Binh affirmed.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court also raised the Ocean Bank case, which involved Mr. Dinh La Thang. In this case, the defendants' civil liability is 800 billion VND in compensation.

“Mr. Dinh La Thang must pay 600 billion VND in compensation, but he is already in prison. This is a difficult verdict to enforce, but it cannot be passed. We have not yet come up with a solution to enforce the verdict in practice,” said Mr. Binh.

Recovered 17,000 billion VND in corruption cases in 5 months

Answering questions from the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long said that recovering assets in economic and corruption cases is one of the important political focuses and tasks set forth in the judiciary in general and the civil enforcement agency in particular.

In recent times, thanks to the implementation of many measures, the recovery rate has been quite positive. For example, in 5 months (from October 2022 to present), over 17,000 billion VND has been recovered. In terms of absolute quantity, it has increased by nearly 12,000 billion compared to the same period last year.

Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long.

In addition to the results achieved, the Minister of Justice admitted that there are still many problems. These are difficulties from the case itself, such as the assets in major cases being scattered in localities across the country.

The second complication is the origin and legality of many seized assets, which are complicated to handle and take a long time to clarify.

Third, there are cases where it is necessary to verify whether the property is public or private property, property of the criminal or someone else...

Mr. Long said that in the coming time, Directive 04 of the Secretariat on strengthening asset recovery in corruption and economic cases; the conclusion of the Central Steering Committee on anti-corruption and negativity... will be better implemented.

The Minister of Justice suggested that elected bodies, the National Assembly, and National Assembly delegations strengthen supervision. "If we have many eyes focused on this, the dispersal and concealment of assets in economic and corruption cases will decrease," said Mr. Le Thanh Long.