Practical Application of Law in Cases of Prohibited Marriage

implement and protect human rights on marriage and family, take measures to create conditions for male and female citizens to establish voluntary and progressive marriages and for families to fully perform their functions [74].

In particular, the regulations on cases of marriage prohibition in particular are generally regulations that are relatively suitable for the economic and political circumstances and conditions, based on the country's fine customs and traditions, so they are agreed upon and complied with by the majority of people from all walks of life. Therefore, the application of marriage prohibition regulations in practice has been relatively widely disseminated to all walks of life, strictly followed by the majority of people, gradually becoming a consciousness in people's perception of the issue of marriage, more and more

Ethnic minority areas with backward customs have had access to the law on marriage and family; reduced polygamous marriages due to remnants of the old regime, or marriages between blood relatives, etc., contributing to the formation of new, more progressive, sustainable and happy families.

However, the application of regulations on cases of marriage prohibition in practice still has many limitations. This comes from many subjective and objective reasons, leading to violations of the provisions of the Law on Marriage and Family on cases of marriage prohibition.

Firstly , in reality, the situation of law violations regarding cases of prohibited marriage under the Law on Marriage and Family 2000 is quite complicated and diverse, occurring in many regions, many fields, and many different forms. Some typical examples that appear in society can be cited as follows:

- Cases of prohibiting marriage with people who are married. Although the law has specific regulations, violations of the case of prohibiting marriage with people who are married are still happening in many places. For example, the case of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ph. in Dong Nai. He has been married for four years, the couple lives very harmoniously. Mr. Ph. has never returned to his wife's hometown to visit, because Ms. MP's (his wife's) parents have passed away, there are not many relatives left, the wedding only has two aunts living in the Central Highlands who traveled down to represent the family. But suddenly there was a complaint against Mr. Ph. for stealing someone else's wife, sent to the agency where Mr. Ph. works. The complaint clearly stated that Mr. Ph.'s wife MP was the wife of a man named Trung in 1999, that year MP was just over 18 years old. Attached to the complaint was a marriage certificate clearly showing that his wife and the man named Trung were married. Mr. Ph. Shocked, she asked her wife and found out that it was the truth. Because her mother died early, her father was an alcoholic and greedy for money, forcing her to marry a man fifteen years older than her. She did not dare tell her future husband for fear of being abandoned, so she had to lie about her parents dying early to hide it. She also got the single certificate through her friends [40].

Another case that caused a stir in public opinion in 2009 was that of Mr. N in Tan Buu commune, Ben Luc district, Long An province: In 1994, Mr. N married his first wife (who registered their marriage at the People's Committee of Tan Buu commune). In 1996, before divorcing his first wife, Mr. N got married and lived together without a marriage certificate with his second wife. In 2000, Mr. N got married again and lived together with his third wife (who was registered for marriage by the People's Committee of Tan Buu commune in 2004). It was not until July 2008 that Mr. N used the excuse that his third wife had left him for someone else and filed for divorce, and the case was discovered by the People's Court of Ben Luc district [15].

Or another case in Thua Thien Hue: Mr. Vo Van Giau (born in 1966, residing at 58/8 Phan Chu Trinh - Hue city) registered his marriage with Ms. Ton Nu Bich Thuy (residing at Phan Dinh Phung - Hue city) in 1993 and was granted a marriage certificate by the People's Committee of Phuoc Vinh commune (Hue city). In 1999, Mr. Vo Van Giau continued to register his marriage with Ms. Tran Thi Kim Quy (born in 1975), a teacher at Huong Thuy High School - in Thua Thien - Hue province, and was granted a marriage certificate by the People's Committee of Phong Son commune (Phong Dien district). Only when Ms. Thuy knew that Mr. Giau had betrayed her, she filed a petition everywhere, sent it to the local authorities, the Board of Directors of Huong Thuy High School to denounce teacher Kim Quy for violating the law, violating the Law on Marriage and Family, did the case come to light [60].

From the above examples, it can be seen that the violation here is not only the non-compliance with the regulations on marriage prohibition of the person getting married, but also partly stems from the wrongdoings of the People's Committee of Tan Buu Commune, Ben Luc District, Long An Province and the People's Committee of Phong Son Commune, Phong Dien District, Thua Thien Hue Province in verifying the marital status of the parties.

In such cases of marriage between married people, when discovered, at the request of the person with the right to request, the Court will implement the provisions of the Law on Marriage and Family to annul the marriage.

Thus, in reality, people who are married and marry others still exist, the application of the law prohibiting marriage to people who are married has not been thoroughly implemented, and violations are still occurring. The main reason for this situation is due to people's awareness of obeying the law, in addition to the negligence of local authorities when confirming marital status, leading to some cases where people naturally have two or three legal wives.

- The case of prohibiting marriage for people who have lost civil capacity. In practice, this violation is not rare, specifically marriage with a person with mental illness. For example, in the case of Ms. Tran Thi T., although she knew that Mr. Nguyen Van B. had a mental illness for a long time, for some reasons, she still decided to marry Mr. B. After the wedding, she and her husband moved to live separately in a house near the field. Every day, Ms. T took care of the farm work, cooked for her husband, and their life together was peaceful and smooth. But gradually, her husband became more and more seriously ill with very aggressive "attacks". He often beat her brutally, and neighbors who came to stop him were also beaten by him. Her husband's family was also afraid of his beatings, so they tried to stay away. Many times, she wanted to go back to her mother's house but was afraid of being rejected, so she tried to stay with Mr. B. When she was three months pregnant, one night, while she was sleeping, her husband beat her repeatedly with a wooden stick. As a result, her child was born with congenital mental illness and shrunken limbs. Many times, she took her child to a neighbor's house for help, but her husband dragged her back and beat her savagely. The local government intervened by sending him to the provincial mental hospital. From then on, she escaped Mr. B's beatings, but every month she had to go in and out of the hospital to visit her husband. On top of that, she had to take care of her disabled child, who lived unconsciously and had no intellectual development [24]. This was a case where she knew the other person was sick but still voluntarily married, and most of the reasons were that before entering married life, the parties had

Not thoroughly understanding the other person, not conducting a medical examination or assessment, leading to an uncertain future marriage, can even lead to the tragedy of killing a loved one because the patient is no longer aware of and cannot control his or her behavior. For example, in Xuan Thu commune, Soc Son district, Hanoi: In 2011, Ms. Nguyen Thi L., born in 1994, was introduced by her doctor to meet and marry Nguyen Van Thuc, born in 1985. After a month of marriage, she

L. discovered that her husband was not normal. One day, while the couple was working at the carpentry workshop, Thuc suddenly grabbed a piece of wood and threw it at his wife. A few days later, Thuc was discovered by people slitting his throat and causing bleeding. Another time, Thuc took a knife and wanted to "deal with" his friend because he borrowed his motorbike but returned it late. When she found out she was pregnant, as happy as Thuc was, she became depressed. When she asked him, Thuc was about to get angry. What surprised L. was that her husband sought death because they had a child. But that time Thuc failed to commit suicide. And the tragedy happened at around 1:00 a.m. on March 25, 2012, when L. was sleeping, Thuc slashed his young wife with scissors. L. shouted but it was too late. By the time her mother and sister-in-law intervened, L. had already been slashed five times, and at that time she was two months pregnant [44]. Not only domestic marriages have occurred with mentally ill people, but marriages with mentally ill people have also occurred with foreign marriages. In the past 5 years, when the "trend" of marrying Koreans and Taiwanese people became popular in some provinces and cities across the country, it also led to many heartbreaking incidents, the most recent of which was the case of bride Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc in Can Tho. After only 8 days of being a bride in a foreign land, Hoang Ngoc was murdered by her husband, who was 26 years older than her. And it is worth mentioning that this Korean groom had a history of mental illness with 57 times of treatment in the hospital [18 ].

Through the above examples, it can be seen that the situation of marrying a mentally ill person happens a lot, causing unhappiness for the family, affecting the happiness and rights of the woman - the wife, and at the same time, the child born may also inherit mental illness. Even most recently