'Any complaint that the Provincial Secretary or Chairman receives from the people is immediately resolved'

Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep, Head of the Central Citizen Reception Committee (CCR): "Reality shows that any complaint that the Provincial Secretary or Chairman receives and resolves is resolved immediately."

At the conference on the implementation of lawyers and jurists participating in providing free legal advice to citizens who come to complain and denounce at the Central Citizen Reception Office, organized by the Vietnam Fatherland Front in coordination with relevant agencies on the afternoon of July 6, in Hanoi, Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep, Head of the Central Citizen Reception Office, Government Inspectorate said that the current trend of people complaining is to gather in large numbers in public places, mobilizing children and students to participate, with hostile forces behind them... There have been many extreme acts of people against the government. At the Central Citizen Reception Office, there have been cases of people seriously beating and injuring citizen reception officers. There are citizens who come to the Central Citizen Reception Office to put pressure on the government.

Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep, Head of the Central Citizen Reception Committee, Government Inspectorate.

“In many places, citizens are not “afraid” of the government. In my place, an official was seriously injured by a slash right at the headquarters. This incident has been handled by the law, but the consequences are severe. This incident has caused psychological trauma to the officials working in public reception at the Central level,” said Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep, among the causes of mass complaints, the biggest is still the policy mechanism. The lifespan of policy documents is not long, especially regarding land, just one day apart the compensation level is different, just a short distance apart the compensation level is different... making people very upset, leading to complaints.

More than 1,600 cases received free consultation at the Central Citizen Reception Office

Lawyer Do Ngoc Thinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Bar Federation, said that implementing the coordination program on monitoring and improving the effectiveness of handling complaints and denunciations at the grassroots level between 5 agencies including the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, the Ministry of Justice, the Government Inspectorate, the Vietnam Bar Federation, and the Vietnam Lawyers Association, in 2016, the Vietnam Bar Federation provided legal advice and legal aid to citizens at both the Central Citizen Reception Offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In the first 6 months of 2016, 243 lawyers participated in providing legal advice to citizens with more than 1,600 consultations.

Workers receive direct advice from lawyers about wages (illustrative photo: NLĐ)

According to Mr. Do Ngoc Thinh, at the Central Citizen Reception Office, in reality, up to 60% of complaints are beyond the authority and illegal, only about 40% are complaints on the right basis. Therefore, when coming here and receiving advice from lawyers, the majority of people have a fuller and clearer understanding of their rights and obligations, thereby changing their attitudes towards complaints to state agencies. There have been some cases where after talking to lawyers, they returned to their hometowns and did not file any more complaints. This consulting activity also helps state agencies in resolving complaints and denunciations of citizens in accordance with the law; discovering some cases of unsatisfactory complaint settlement, with errors, to make recommendations to competent agencies to ensure the legitimate rights of the people...

“The implementation of consulting at the Central Citizen Reception Office in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi shows that lawyers are very enthusiastic and responsible, although this is a very difficult task for lawyers compared to providing legal consulting services to their clients,” said Mr. Thinh.

'Any complaint that the Provincial Secretary or Chairman receives from the people is immediately resolved'

Mr. Do Ngoc Thinh said that the difficulty of providing free legal aid in complaints and denunciations is that the cases at the Central Citizen Reception Office have often been resolved by agencies at many levels, lasting for many years. The nature of the cases is complex and sensitive, so when providing legal aid to people, lawyers cannot grasp and thoroughly understand the nature of the cases in a short time. However, lawyers still have to give advice to people immediately, so the effectiveness of the advice cannot be seen immediately...

According to many lawyers, complaints and denunciations are increasing because there is still a lack of democracy and respect for the people, especially in major policies and projects, which makes people very upset and causes them to file complaints at higher levels. In many places, local authorities do not take the Law on Complaints and Denunciations seriously, do not receive people... causing people to have a bad impression of state agencies, lose trust, and lead to complaints at higher levels. Therefore, opinions are that authorities at all levels need to be responsible and do a good job of receiving people and resolving complaints and denunciations.

The conference deployed lawyers and jurists to provide free legal advice to citizens who come to complain and denounce at the Central Citizen Reception Office.

“Lawyers who advise people are not all for the sake of service. There are cases where the long-standing grievances of the people make the lawyers feel heartbroken and feel responsible for helping the people. We hope for coordination to do a better job of resolving complaints and denunciations for the people, especially to strengthen the responsibility of the authorities at all levels,” shared Lawyer Nguyen Van Xung (Hai Phong City Bar Association).

Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep said that many cases of transferring complaints were not transferred to the right authority or address, even many National Assembly deputies also transferred them incorrectly. To improve the effectiveness of complaints and denunciations, leaders must increase their meetings with the people. "In reality, any complaint that the Secretary or Chairman of the province meets with the people and resolves is resolved immediately. When the Secretary or Chairman of the province has made a promise to the people, they must fulfill their promise," said Mr. Diep.

According to Lawyer Do Ngoc Thinh, when providing legal aid to people and helping state agencies resolve complaints for people, it is necessary to choose a number of typical cases. Through that, we will learn from experience how to do it so that the assistance can be more effective and practical. Through practical consultation, it is necessary to improve the work of receiving people at the local level by officials receiving people, avoiding the situation where people file complaints beyond their level. State agencies must resolve people's complaints on time, if they refuse, they must clearly state the reason on the basis of compliance with the law./.

According to VOV