Specific Recommendations for Improving the Law on Victims

The agencies and the people who investigate crimes are responsible for detecting and handling crimes, so these subjects must comply with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. The agencies and the people who investigate crimes apply the measures prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code to resolve the case, which is a manifestation of the principle of legality. With this principle, all subjects conducting and participating in the proceedings must comply with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. If the Court applies the law without complying with the procedural law, the result will not be recognized by law. The principle of socialist legality in the process of building and applying the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code makes this process take place in the right order, helping the Criminal Procedure Code in practice to operate in a unified, synchronous and highly effective manner. The principle of socialist legality is also an important basis for protecting the rights and legitimate interests of citizens when participating in the Criminal Procedure Code. The principle of socialist legality also requires agencies and people conducting proceedings to explain and ensure the implementation of the rights and obligations of those participating in the proceedings. This principle ensures that the fight against crime is resolute and thorough, ensures the education of criminals, and at the same time prevents the unjust conviction of innocent people and prevents the illegal restriction of citizens' democratic rights. The principle of protecting socialist legality is recognized as a fundamental principle of criminal procedure, which is not only the principle of applying the law on criminal procedure but also guides the development of law in practice.

Third, the principle of respecting and protecting human rights, rights and legitimate interests of individuals.

Article 8 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code stipulates: “ When conducting proceedings, within the scope of their duties and powers, competent agencies and persons conducting proceedings must respect and protect human rights, the rights and legitimate interests of individuals; regularly check the legality and necessity of applied measures, promptly cancel or change such measures if they are found to violate the law or are no longer necessary ”. This provision is so that in the process of applying the Criminal Procedure Law, subjects must respect human rights and protect the legitimate interests of individuals because the severity and authority of the Criminal Procedure Law can easily infringe upon human rights. In the law-making activity

Criminal procedure law, this is a principle that must be strictly followed. The nature of criminal law and criminal procedure is state power, to fight against crime, there should be inequality between the participating parties. Therefore, when building or perfecting the Criminal Procedure Law, lawmakers need to ensure this principle so that the regulations issued when implemented in practice do not infringe upon human rights.

Fourth, the principle of ensuring equality before the law

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Everyone is equal before the law, regardless of ethnicity, gender, belief, religion, social class and status; anyone who commits a crime and meets all the elements of a crime will be prosecuted.

This principle requires that, when issuing documents, lawmakers must acknowledge that all individuals have the same position in criminal proceedings, without discrimination or treatment between those who discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, belief, religion, social status and other signs. Whoever that person is when committing a crime must be seriously dealt with. Equality must be ensured between participants in the proceedings, with equal rights in presenting evidence and requests, and equality in rights and obligations in the process of resolving cases in general and in the Court in particular.

3.2. Specific recommendations to improve the law on victims

Firstly, the term victim in the Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal Code is not consistent. According to the Criminal Procedure Code, victims include individuals, agencies and organizations, so the term used is "victim". The Criminal Procedure Code is a formal law to implement the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code in practice. Meanwhile, the Criminal Procedure Code uses the term "victim" which has a narrower connotation than victim. Therefore, in order for the Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal Procedure Code to be consistent and consistent, it is necessary to replace the term "victim" in the Criminal Procedure Code with the term "victim" as in the Criminal Procedure Code.

Second, regarding the time of determining the victim. Up to now, the Criminal Procedure Code has only regulated the content to determine the victim but has not yet regulated the time, authority, order and form to determine an individual, agency or organization that has suffered damage as a victim in order to determine the rights and obligations of the victim. Therefore, it causes difficulties.

for the injured person to exercise his/her rights, including the right to request a person to protect his/her legitimate rights and interests. From there, the student proposed that there should be specific regulations on the time when an injured subject is identified as a victim in criminal proceedings to facilitate the victim to exercise his/her rights and obligations, ensuring that the victim's rights and interests are best protected. On the other hand, it is necessary to stipulate the time when the victim has the right to request a person to protect his/her legitimate rights and interests, along with the order and procedures for recognizing the victim and the right to request a person to protect the victim's legitimate rights and interests. Therefore, it is necessary to have a document guiding the procedure for registering a person to protect the victim's legitimate rights and interests, and at the same time supplementing related forms to ensure that the provisions of Article 84 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code are fully applied.

Third, regarding the time of withdrawal of the request for prosecution: In order to accurately, consistently and correctly apply the provisions of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code, the 2015 Law on Organization of People's Courts, and the 2015 Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents, the Supreme People's Court's Judicial Council should promptly issue a Resolution guiding the implementation of the provisions in Clause 2, Article 155 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code; accordingly, it is necessary to supplement Article 359 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code in the direction of "In case the person who requested prosecution withdraws the request according to the provisions in Clause 2, Article 155 of this Code, the Appellate Trial Council shall annul the first instance judgment and suspend the case". The addition of this provision is consistent with the provisions of Clause 2, Article 155 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code on the time when the victim or the victim's representative has the right to withdraw the request for prosecution, even at the appeal stage, and ensures the principle of legality and the legality of the authority of the appellate panel. Or add the phrase "and 8" to Clause 2, Article 359 of the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code: "When there is one of the grounds specified in Clauses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, Article 157 of this Code, the appellate panel shall annul the first instance judgment and suspend the case."

3.3. Solutions to improve the effectiveness of protecting victims in criminal proceedings

The Code of Criminal Procedure has many provisions on victims, the purpose of the provisions on victims in criminal proceedings is not only to clarify the objective truth of the case but also to protect the rights of victims - the subject who suffers losses due to the violation of crime. Therefore, to improve the effectiveness of protecting victims in criminal proceedings means improving the effectiveness of applying criminal procedural law on victims. In addition to the need to have

To have complete, synchronous legal norms that are suitable to economic, political and social conditions, it is necessary to improve the legal cultural level of law enforcers and the people, the organization and staff of competent law enforcement agencies, competent law enforcement entities and subjects subject to law enforcement.

Firstly, increase awareness of legislative bodies, prosecution agencies and prosecutors about victims' rights.

As analyzed in the above section, the process of promulgating the Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in Vietnam today has not fully recognized the theory and importance of ensuring the rights of victims in the litigation process. The Criminal Justice System in Vietnam only focuses on fighting and preventing crimes but has not aimed at protecting victims. Therefore, it is necessary to set the main purpose of the criminal justice system as protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the State and citizens in general and victims in particular through the fight against crimes, not the fight against crimes, thereby aiming at protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the State and citizens. On the side of the agencies conducting the proceedings and the people conducting the proceedings, the solution to raise awareness and capacity, and responsibility for exercising rights requires a lot of law enforcement skills. Specifically:

Solutions to improve awareness of victims' rights need to focus on solutions to innovate procedural thinking, one-sided thinking about the goals of Vietnam's criminal justice system. In the past, legal thinking about the purpose of criminal justice was "finding the truth" about crime and "controlling crime" without paying attention to the rights of victims in criminal proceedings. It is this one-sided thinking, focusing on controlling crime, that neglects the task of respecting and protecting the rights of participants in the proceedings, including the rights of victims. There needs to be innovation and avoid the one-sided thinking mentioned above for the criminal justice agency and the criminal justice personnel.

Solutions to improve legal knowledge, expertise and thinking about human rights, including the rights of victims for people with disabilities. The situation where investigators, prosecutors and judges are only good at procedural skills in theory, but when practicing, they make many mistakes in procedures such as violating the rights of participants.

litigation due to disregard for the rights and obligations of the victim. Therefore, improving professional skills must be associated with raising awareness of human rights for judicial staff as a sustainable training direction.

Second, improve the awareness, ability, capacity, professional qualifications, skills, qualities and ethics of litigants.

To protect the rights of victims in criminal proceedings, in addition to the perfection of legal regulations, it also requires the level of awareness, ability, capacity, professional qualifications, skills, qualities and ethics of the person conducting the proceedings.

The capacity, professional qualifications, and ethical qualities of civil servants in general and litigants in particular are important factors that determine the quality of case resolution by the Court in general and the People's Courts at two levels of Dong Nai province in particular. Judges are the ones who directly adjudicate to ensure stability and fairness for society, protect the rights and legitimate interests of victims, so the first requirement for judges is to have professional qualifications. Because judges are the ones who "weigh and measure", to protect justice, they are the ones who hold power, fame and position but come with great responsibility. Therefore, the process of training, selecting and appointing judges must be carried out scientifically. The task of the Court is to protect justice, protect human rights, civil rights, and the rights of victims, and the people who carry out the main tasks are judges.

Among the many reasons leading to the limitations and shortcomings in the application of law in the trial of criminal cases of the People's Court of Dong Nai province, the professional qualifications of the litigants are the decisive factor in the quality of the resolution of cases. Therefore, to meet the professional needs, there must be a plan for regular and in-depth training of litigants to equip and update legal knowledge and law application skills. In addition, judges and prosecutors themselves must proactively improve their qualifications and the quality of adjudication by exchanging and learning from the experiences of other judges and prosecutors and reviewing the final judgments to gain experience, self-correct weaknesses in their work, and improve the quality of adjudication. When there is a case

In complicated cases, the Judge will proactively notify the agency's leadership to organize a meeting between Judges to exchange expertise and propose appropriate solutions for the Judge directly handling the case to refer to.

The Trial Panel in a criminal case includes not only the Judge but also the People's Assessor (for the Trial Panel of First Instance). The People's Assessor is the one who directly applies the law to demonstrate the nature of the State for the people, but the Assessor is not required to have legal knowledge and does not have trial skills. Therefore, to improve the quality of activities, it is necessary to organize annual training on new legal documents for the People's Assessor and foster trial skills and how to handle common situations to contribute to improving quality. To perfect this system in accordance with the nature of the people's participation in the trial process of the Court, it is necessary to clearly distinguish the stages of participation of the People's Jury in the trial process such as determining guilt or innocence according to the Jury's inner beliefs, and the application of the law to determine the rights and obligations of the parties belongs to the judge who directly applies the law in resolving and trying criminal cases to issue a fair and lawful judgment, protecting the rights and legitimate interests of the victim, so the judge must have legal knowledge and professional qualifications.

In addition to improving the level of awareness, ability, capacity, professional qualifications, skills, qualities and ethics of litigants, people's awareness of the law also plays an important role in protecting the rights of victims. When people have an understanding and knowledge of the law, they will know how to best protect their rights, especially when they suffer damage and participate in litigation as victims. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen legal education and propaganda to improve people's legal knowledge so that they know how to use the law to protect their legitimate rights and interests and fight against negative phenomena and violations of the law in society. Improving people's legal knowledge can be done in many different ways, such as hanging banners and slogans; adapting propaganda panels; compiling propaganda materials; creating posters; oral propaganda; building legal bookcases in each locality; Publicly post legal regulations on the rights and obligations of victims at the headquarters of the People's Committee of the commune or

Cultural houses of each ward and commune. When people have a high level of education, they not only better protect their rights but also exercise their right to supervise litigation activities more effectively.

Third, raise legal awareness of subjects with the authority to apply the law and subjects subject to the law.

Legal awareness has a great influence on the litigation process, the quality of case resolution and the protection of the rights of victims in criminal cases. All subjects including the prosecuting agency, the prosecutor, the accused, the victim and other participants in the proceedings need to have legal awareness to adjust their behavior and in dealing with the behavior of other subjects in accordance with the requirements of criminal procedural law.

In order for the law enforcement activities of the litigants to be correct and effective, it is necessary to raise the legal awareness of the litigants. The legal awareness of the litigants also plays an important role in educating the legal awareness of the victims, the participants in the proceedings and the entire population. If the law enforcers and public authorities commit wrongdoings, it will make the people lose faith in the law and the regime, leading to the people's contempt for the law, from which more crimes occur and more subjects are damaged. On the contrary, if the law enforcers have a high legal awareness and issue legal judgments, they will not only punish criminals but also educate them to become useful people for society, conscious of obeying the law and the rules of socialist life, preventing them from committing new crimes; in addition, they will educate others to respect the law, fight to prevent and combat crimes. On the other hand, the legal awareness and behavior of litigants have a great influence on human rights, the legitimate rights of citizens and victims because they can issue decisions that create, change or terminate one or more rights of the victim, which can bring benefits or damages both materially and spiritually to other organizations and individuals. Therefore, litigants must practice professional political ethics, practice fortitude, independent thinking, for the common good, and be steadfast in the process of conducting litigation.

Litigants must have a high level of legal awareness to realize that legal awareness has a positive impact on the process of performing their duties. Decisions on law enforcement must be issued by the correct authority, with the correct name and procedures prescribed by law. Litigants must always uphold the spirit of the rule of law in all their activities.

Not only that, the legal awareness of judges in particular and litigants in general also plays an important role when current legal regulations do not keep up with the development of social relations. Specifically, when the law is unclear or absent, there are many different views and the application of this provision is not consistent. In this case, the legal awareness and inner belief of the competent person are important to resolve the case quickly and objectively. If due to personal motives or other reasons, the rights of the person in need of protection may not be well and properly protected. Therefore, the law enforcement process must be closely monitored, and measures must be taken to strictly handle those who intentionally misapply the law.

The two-level People's Court of Dong Nai province must strictly comply with legal regulations in the process of resolving criminal cases. The person conducting the proceedings must have a firm grasp of the content of the regulations that need to be applied. For unclear regulations with many different opinions, efforts must be made to study and apply them in accordance with the spirit of the law. Difficulties must be summarized and recommended to competent persons for appropriate application in accordance with the practical situation.

Fourth, summarize experience in applying the law

In order to improve the quality of criminal trials, limit shortcomings in the issuance of judgments, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of victims, it is necessary to strengthen inspection and supervision to promptly detect errors in the trial process due to subjective errors of judges. Through inspection work, to grasp the situation of law enforcement by local courts and district-level People's Courts regarding the results achieved and shortcomings to draw common experiences. When detecting difficulties and obstacles in the process of implementing specialized

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