Telling Our Story Home » Submit a story » Calendars » FAQs » About » Stories by Region Asia » Europe & and Eurasia » Latin America & the Carribean » Middle East » Sub-Saharan Africa »
	USAID Information: USAID Asia FY 2009 Congressional Budget Justification (for RDMA) Selected USAID Reports Stories From Vietnam External Links: U.S. State Department CIA World Factbook United Nations Development Programme World Bank Group
	Click for more stories from Asia and the Near East

Case Study

Photo: STAR

International experts trained judges on implementing the Civil Procedures Code. The code enables judges to order the seizure counterfeit goods and requires that parties and their lawyers are treated equally and their rights protected.

Challenge

A well-functioning, independent and impartial court system is vital to resolving commercial disputes, advancing economic development and establishing the rule of law. In Vietnam, outdated civil procedure rules not only kept the courts from resolving disputes effectively, but they also conflicted with intellectual property rights requirements of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. In addition, under Vietnam's "inquisitorial" system of dispute resolution, the judge gathered evidence and could arbitrarily decide whether a party could speak or present evidence. Fair resolution of disputes was difficult, if not impossible, and the participation of a state prosecutor in almost all stages of civil cases injected a high decree of uncertainty.

Initiative

USAID has helped the Supreme People's Court and the National Assembly develop and enact a new Civil Procedures Code to guide the day-to-day work of courts and judges. USAID provided detailed comments on drafts and background papers on key issues, organized retreats to prepare the final draft, and worked directly with the National Assembly's Law Committee to finalize the draft. In June 2004, the Assembly passed the landmark Civil Procedures Code. Currently, USAID is supporting the training of almost 500 judges on how to implement the code.

Results

The innovations of the new Civil Procedures Code take the Vietnamese judicial system further toward cementing the rule of law and bring the country closer to complying with the Bilateral Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization. The code now enables judges to order the seizure of counterfeit goods, eliminates the state prosecutor from civil cases, requires that court decisions be based only on evidence admitted at trial, and requires that parties and their lawyers are treated equally and their rights protected. The groundbreaking Civil Procedures Code has moved Vietnam dramatically away from a judge-led system of civil dispute resolution and toward an adversarial system that specifically recognizes party initiative.

Print-friendly version of this page (40kb - PDF)

Click here for high-res photo

Back to Top ^