poor professional qualifications. The recruitment or assessment must be extremely objective and fair, through the handling of specific situations that the trial process requires the judge to resolve.
Improve the professional qualifications, political theory, foreign languages, and information technology for the team of judges. Have policies to encourage judges to actively study to improve their qualifications, to meet the assigned tasks. Timely update specialized legal documents, related legal documents on the industry's website so that judges and civil servants can easily look up and update new documents. Regularly organize training and seminars on topics of criminal law, criminal procedure law, and criminal trial skills. Organize model trials, request other judges to attend and contribute opinions. Model trials can be conducted by judges with experience, good professional skills and trial skills for other judges to learn, or by judges with less experience, poor professional skills and trial skills so that everyone can attend and give opinions and learn from experience.
Organize timely analysis, evaluation, and lessons learned from cases that were annulled or significantly revised due to subjective errors of the Trial Panel. Find out the reasons for the annulment so as to avoid making those errors in future cases.
For judges, in addition to professional qualifications, they need to have a bachelor's degree in politics or advanced political theory to have a strong political stance in the process of performing adjudication duties. Strive for 100% of judges to have a bachelor's degree or advanced political theory.
In the trend of increasingly deep international integration, judges are required to know international languages (most commonly English), to be able to refer to international law, law and trial experience of developed countries in the world. Participate in international conferences, try cases with foreign elements. More convenient in using and exploiting information from the internet to serve the trial work.
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+ Adequate treatment and reasonable use of judges
To have a "reasonable" verdict, we require judges to have many factors to meet this requirement. When trying a case, they are subject to a lot of pressure from public opinion, from participants in the proceedings, other prosecuting agencies, from acquaintances, even from people with positions of authority, legal requirements..., requiring judges to have intelligence, courage, professional ethics, the ability to analyze, evaluate, make judgments, and argue sharply and convincingly. The work of a judge is a special job that requires appropriate remuneration, enough to support themselves and their families, and overcome negative material temptations. Only when the judge's salary meets the living needs of themselves and their families, will they feel secure in their work, invest time in researching the law, studying case files, and limit being influenced by negative factors, and be impartial and objective in ADPL.
Arrange the number of judges and other civil servants commensurate with the work needs to have conditions to pay judges adequately, it is necessary to overcome the situation where judges have to handle more or less than the average number of cases per month for 01 judge to handle (04 cases/month). Quickly convert the salary regime from a professional regime to an employment regime for the state apparatus, including judges. Implement a material reward regime commensurate with work efficiency, quality, and quantity of cases tried annually. Build titles such as people's judge, excellent judge... so that society honors exemplary judges.
Assign tasks in accordance with the actual qualifications and capacity of each judge. The arrangement, assignment and assignment of tasks to judges must be based on the professional qualifications, trial experience and work strengths of each judge. At the same time, there must be a mechanism to create pressure for judges to always try to complete their assigned tasks well, replacing judges who do not meet the requirements such as: wrongly convicting innocent people, wrongly convicting crimes, letting crimes go unpunished.
Discipline...Strictly discipline judges who lack a sense of responsibility in serving the people, threaten, extort, demand bribes...
The rotation of judges should only be applied to judges who are the source for appointing the Chief Justice of the Court, because the Chief Justice is the leader of the Court, responsible for assigning and organizing the trial activities of the Court, requiring outstanding and comprehensive professional capacity and experience in managing and operating the trial activities of all types of cases under the jurisdiction of the Court, such as: Criminal, civil, economic, labor, administrative. The source for appointing the Chief Justice of the District Court should select provincial-level judges (intermediate judges) who are transferred to specialized courts before being appointed the Chief Justice of the District. These comrades who complete their tasks well will be the source for appointing the Chief Justice of the Provincial Court. As for the positions of deputy chief justice in charge of a few specialized courts or chief, deputy chief justice of specialized courts, deputy chief justice of district level, judges with good expertise in that field should be selected. For judges of specialized provincial courts, district-level judges or secretaries of specialized courts should be selected who are good at professional expertise.
The creation of a source of judges should be studied in an open direction, not just for secretaries and court officials. The Supreme People's Court should organize a training exam for the title of judge for those with a law university degree or higher who wish to become a judge. After a period of intensive training in a field, the examination should be serious, objective, and fair (the exam papers of successful candidates should be published on the internet so that many subjects can monitor). If they pass, they should be recruited as court secretaries at all levels and be a source of judge appointments. This will improve the quality of judge appointment sources, create conditions for those who are capable and dedicated to the judge profession to have the opportunity to become judges, and on the other hand, reduce the burden on the State budget for training in trial skills as well as the negative aspects in reviewing and sending them to attend trial skills classes.
+ Promote political, ideological and ethical education for judges and court officials.
Mobilize all judges and court officials to actively study Ho Chi Minh's moral ideology and follow his teachings: "Serve the public, uphold the law, be impartial and impartial."
Not only must each judge have sufficient qualifications, but he must also be self-aware that: State power belongs to the people, the people give it to him to serve the country, to serve the people. He must not use that power arbitrarily or for his own personal gain. A judge must know how to overcome temptations, to wholeheartedly serve the people, be loyal to the country, to the regime, and courageously protect justice, social equity, and the legitimate rights and interests of citizens.
On the other hand, the Court must promptly detect and handle judges and civil servants who commit violations or fail to fulfill their assigned duties, in order to build a truly clean Court that is a solid support for the people.
- Improve the quality of operations, remuneration, responsibility and ensure the independence of the People's Jury .
People's assessors are members of the Trial Council, prestigious people elected by the People's Council at the same level to directly participate in the trial of cases on behalf of the people, and are important subjects in criminal ADPL at the Court, especially in the first instance trial of criminal cases, the decision of the verdict is the decision of the assessors because the number of assessors participating in the Trial Council is larger than the judges, but they vote by majority, the judges are equal to the assessors. These first instance judgments never take legal effect immediately, but only after a certain period of time, when the subjects of ADPL feel that the decision is appropriate and the Procuracy finds that the judgment is in accordance with the law, they do not appeal or protest, then this judgment takes legal effect.
After being elected as a jury, the Court needs to organize training in trial skills and foster legal knowledge for the people's jurors. Because they represent the people, they not only base on the law but also on fairness and justice in life, from the perspective of the people, to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not, what crime and the appropriate punishment. Therefore, it is impossible to require the jurors to have high professional qualifications like judges. Not only in Vietnam but also in most countries in the world, jurors are prestigious citizens representing the population directly participating in the trial, without high requirements on legal qualifications. However, the People's jurors need to proactively learn the law, improve their responsibility for the trial, to be able to fulfill their duties as jurors well.
The People's Jury needs to be financially independent and to arrange for jurors to participate in court sessions.
In order to encourage the People's Jury to improve its sense of responsibility, actively study the case files, and effectively participate in the trial, there must be a corresponding treatment regime. The operating budget of the People's Jury needs to be independent and not dependent on the Court as it is now, so that the Jury can proactively pay directly to the Jury members to participate in studying the case files and adjudicating. On the other hand, it is also to create conditions for the People's Jury to be independent in adjudicating, assigning the task of arranging the Jury members to participate in the trial to the Jury. The Jury needs to have a regulation for arranging the Jury members to participate in the trial in turn. If for some reason they cannot participate in the trial, when it is their turn, they must have a written report and be arranged to participate in the next time. Avoid the situation where the Jury members do not follow the judge's direction when deliberating, they are rarely invited to participate in the trial, or to save costs, the time the Court arranges for the Jury members to study the case files is too little compared to the requirement.
- Ensure the principle that when trying a case, judges and people's assessors are independent and only obey the law.
The Trial Council consists of judges and People's Assessors, acting on behalf of state power, to decide whether a citizen is guilty or not guilty. If guilty, he or she must suffer very severe punishment, including deprivation of life. Therefore, it cannot be assigned to a single individual, but must be decided by the Trial Council as a whole, with members having equal rights, being independent and only obeying the law. This is the highest requirement to ensure an objective trial, correct person, correct crime, correct law, not wrongly convicting innocent people and not letting criminals escape.
This principle is ensured under the following aspects:
First: Independence from objective factors affecting from outside the Court, such as the direct leadership of the Party Committee; Organizations and individuals responsible for evaluating, selecting and appointing judges; Impact of other agencies and persons conducting proceedings (such as investigation, prosecution, etc.), or impact of participants in the proceedings (defendants and their families, victims, lawyers, etc.). Public opinion and pre-trial information from the media are also factors affecting the independence of Judges and Jurors.
Second: Independence from objective factors affecting the internal relationships of the Court. Independence between the lower court and the higher court, independence within a Court, between the presiding judge and the chief judge, the chief judge. It is necessary to separate administrative relations from litigation relations. Enhance the responsibility of the Trial Panel for its judgments, avoid relying on the collective guidelines, the higher court or depending on the views of other litigation agencies, ensure the independence of judges and People's Assessors, when adjudicating, only obey the law. The judgment of the Trial Panel must be based on the results of the debate at the trial.
Third: Independence among members of the Trial Panel, each member is independent and equal to each other in evaluating evidence and making decisions.
Conclusion. When deliberating, only members of the Trial Panel are allowed to deliberate. The judge must respect the Jury and must not impose his or her opinion on the Jury. The Jury has the right to give its own independent opinions and conclusions on the case. The issues of the case are voted on by the members of the Trial Panel one by one, with the judge voting last. The decision of the verdict is the decision of the majority of the members of the Trial Panel. The minority opinion during the deliberation is reserved in writing and kept in the case file.
Independence and compliance with the law are two closely related contents. Only when ensuring the independence of judges and assessors will they only comply with the law and vice versa. Independent judges and assessors can improve the quality of trials, enhance the personal responsibility of the members of the Trial Panel, in accordance with the nature of the trial, and ensure objectivity in accordance with the proceedings of the trial. The principle "When trying trials, judges and assessors are independent and only comply with the law" has been recognized in all Constitutions from 1946 to the present. It is affirmed in Article 130 of the 1992 Constitution, Article 16 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Article 5 of the Law on Organization of People's Courts in 2002. Compliance with this principle is an important factor in ensuring that the verdict is correct for the right person, the right crime, and the right law.
- Improve the quality of operations of investigation and prosecution agencies as well as other judicial support agencies.
The quality of criminal ADPL of the Court is closely linked to the quality of investigation activities of the investigation agency and the quality of prosecution activities. Therefore, in order to effectively reform the judiciary, our Party and State advocate strengthening the organization and improving the quality of activities of all three agencies: the Court, the Procuracy, and the Investigation Agency in a synchronous manner and taking appropriate steps.
In the judicial reform strategy, the Court is identified as the center, and the trial is the focus. The trial is an independent stage of the proceedings, but the quality of the trial depends largely on the quality of the activities of the investigation agency and the
The prosecution agency. Documents and evidence collected by the investigation agency during the investigation phase are an important basis for the Trial Council to analyze, evaluate and publicly examine at the trial. Documents and evidence collected by the investigation agency will facilitate the Trial Council in clarifying the details of the case at the trial, and will be the basis for the Trial Council to determine the crime against the defendant. Without investigation results, the trial cannot be conducted and in reality, many details of the case can only be clarified during the investigation phase and cannot be disclosed at the trial.
Therefore, to ensure the quality of criminal trials, it is necessary to improve the quality of activities of investigation agencies and prosecution agencies.
- Building and strengthening judicial support agencies
Resolution No. 49 NQ/TW emphasizes:
Building and perfecting the legal system on judicial support (Lawyers, notaries, appraisers, judicial police, etc.) in the direction of increasingly fully and conveniently meeting the diverse needs for legal support of people and businesses, strongly socializing judicial support activities, etc. [8].
The practice of trial activities shows that the activities of judicial support agencies and organizations, such as: Lawyers, Appraisers, Notaries, Civil Status, etc., although not directly deciding on criminal judgments, actively support the criminal ADPL activities of the Court. The results of the activities of these agencies provide valuable evidence documents proving crimes, clarifying the objective details of the case, so they have a direct impact on the quality of the trial, especially in cases causing injuries, the results of the appraisal are important evidence to determine the crime and the sentence for the defendant. The objectivity, timeliness and accuracy of judicial support activities contribute to ensuring the quality of the Court's trial. On the contrary, the activities of judicial support agencies are ineffective, inaccurate and untimely, which can easily lead to errors in the prosecution activities.