VietNamNet Bridge – People's procuracies should be involved in preparing law suits for civil court trials to make them fairer and objective, the Chairwoman of the NA Committee of Judiciary, Le Thi Thu Ba, said here yesterday, Feb 16.

Ba was speaking at a National Assembly Standing Committee discussion on a draft amendment of the Civil Procedure Code.

Committee members also suggested giving the court the right to over-rule illegal decisions made by other offices, to install a system to re-examine verdicts by the Supreme People's Court Judgement Council, and to be able to adjust the length of time available for appealing against verdicts.

They agreed to have the appeal time for court participants lengthened to one year and those by authorised offices to three years.

Ba said that the participation of the procuracies in the lawsuit process was part of their responsibility to make sure laws were carried out appropriately. She added that this would not affect the processing of the case.

Deputy Chief Judge of the Supreme People's Procuracy Le Huu The said that when people's procuracies joined the lawsuit process, they should not influence decisions made by both sides participating in the case.

National Assembly Legal Committee chairman Nguyen Van Thuan said he agreed with the NA Standing Committee proposal to give the court the right to over-rule other offices' verdicts if they were shown to be illegal.

At present, courts only can make requests for the dismission of illegal verdicts and wait for other offices or organisations to process and officially over-rule them. "This takes too much time and delays the case procedure," Thuan said.

According to the current Civil Procedure Code, there is no system for re-examining verdicts made by the Supreme People's Court Judgement Council.

"The central-level People's procuracies and NA Legal Committee can do nothing even when the Supreme Court verdicts reveal serious mistakes and create huge public opposition," Thuan said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News