Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
From: jesper karlsson <jesper414@hotmail.com>
Date: Jul 31, 2006 8:00 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
Hello! I have some questions regarding the correlation between corruption
and legal reforms in Vietnam. But since this is my first post at this
excellent forum I’d like firstly to introduce myself. I’m Jesper Karlsson,
student in development studies at Gothenburg University, Sweden. Until last
year, my knowledge of Vietnam was limited to Hollywood films and my parents’
stories about the anti-war movement back in the day. But in October 2005, I
visited Hanoi, and Thanh Son district in Phu Tho and I was overwhelmed by
the intensity in Hanoi and the beauty of the uplands, and I really got
along well with the people i met.
I and a friend got interested in corruption after discussions with
Sida-staff at the Swedish embassy in Hanoi and when we heard rumours about
corruption within program 135 in upland provinces. Back in Sweden we decided
to write our bachelor thesis about the corruption in Vietnam. Soon we became
interested in possible (market adjustment, political legitimisation,
control, poverty reduction) rationales for putting anti-corruption on top of
the Vietnamese and global development agenda. Eventually we also became
interested in the tension between de jure and de facto law in Vietnam, as
well as between the concept of rule of law and the view of law as a tool to
achieve certain goals within the socialist law-based state doctrine. So we
decided to focus on corruption the Vietnamese legal system.
We have begun our study and are still probing for data, theories and
possible questions, but currently our focus is on the new anti-corruption
law “the Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005“ and on the
survey on anti-corruption performed and by the Committee for internal
affairs of the CPV and SIDA presented in November 2005.
Does anyone know of any assessments of the new anti-corruption law?
We are also interested in any comments or perceptions about the new law and
how it may succeed in the Vietnamese legal context to respond to the
following causes of corruption (as identified by the CPV and SIDA):
1.) The asking-giving mechanism as a legacy of the subsidized system;
2.) Policies and legal documents give leeway;
3.) The administrative procedures are cumbersome and overlapping;
4.) The strict check and supervision on the activities of the authority is
still missing;
5.) The remedies and enforcement of sanction against corruption are not
strict.
Thank You!
Jesper
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>
Date: Jul 31, 2006 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
Dear Jesper,
I think a central issue you should consider when researching and
analyzing corruption is the degree to which punitive measures are
likely to change behavior. In fact, you may wish to answer the
question of whether punitive measures really represent a constructive
attempt to impact corruption or are more aimed at a political need to
be seen to do something about corruption. Among most people I have
spoken to in Vietnam, the sense is that corruption is the norm, and a
person who is punished for corruption has offended the wrong person
(often by not being corrupt towards the appropriate persons).
Any study of corruption should consider the official pay scale for
state workers and consider how reasonable it is to expect people with
power and position to carry out their duties in an entirely "clean"
manner for such wages. It would be quite interesting, for example,
to lay out the official pay scale for judges. There has been very
limited change to the state employee official pay scale over the
years, relative to the monetary value of the decisions that
government officials make on a regular basis. The lack of change to
this scale could be argued to also be the result of politics and a
feeling that the general citizenry might be uncomfortable with a more
significant increase in pay. Justifying such a major increase would,
of course, presuppose that doing so would indeed directly result in a
reduction of corruption -- which a cynical populace may doubt. A
highly related topic would then be government views and actions with
regard to the role of the press.
Markus
From: jesper karlsson <jesper414@hotmail.com>
Date: Aug 1, 2006 5:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
Dear Markus, thanks for the response!
Yes, punitive measusres are a very intersting aspect!! Interestingly,
roughly 95% of the respondents in the anti-corruption study thought that
there should be more "Strict punishment of corruption actions of any
officials regardless their positions".
We have been thinking about "belief in legality" with regards to punishment
and procedural justice. I have understood that the average citizen's trust
in the court system are low and that critics believe that punishments are
likely to remain arbitrary, or selective and pre-arranged in politically
sensitive cases. From what I have understood there ar no official
punishment-scales for corrupt acts?
You have a very interesitng point on the citizens' view on the pay scale!
I understand that lower administrative staff (for example in the lower
courts) need several jobs outside the civil service to make ends meet. Do
you know where to get official pay-scales?
The problem of low wages + discretionary power has been aknowledged by the
government. Yet, only 1/3 of the respondents of the Anti-corruption study
thought that this was a cause of corruption. Reportedly some respondents
said that "in wartime we had had the same leading Party, the same mechanism
and enjoy-low-income officers, and lived a much hard life but corruption had
rarely happened." This brings in the ever present issue of morality among
the cadres and state bureaucrats...
What do you consider of the role of the media in regards to corruption?
Martin Gainsborough has argued that the media pushed at the boundraries of
press freedom in their cover of the PMU 18 case.
Best regards,
Jesper
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com>
Date: Aug 1, 2006 6:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
Another thing to keep in mind is the difficulty of making clean,
absolute distinctions of what is corruption. I don't think you'll
get far thinking of corruption as something practiced only by "the
corrupt". Most people I know in Vietnam would very much agree that
corruption is has a negative impact on their economy and society and
would like to see it eliminated. At the same time, most people I
know (and I know primarily people in the main two cities) benefit
from corruption in a fairly direct way, including, for example,
receiving bribes for government services and even paying initial
"down-payments" to get hired at their jobs (with the expectation, of
course, that they will benefit from the downpayments of others down
the line). In that context, how to have a punishment scale for
corruption? It's certainly not a simple issue. I actually do
vaguely remember reading that there is a particular cutoff at which
corruption becomes a death penalty offense.
As for the lack of corruption in earlier eras... their pay may have
been low, but the relative official remuneration of bureaucrats
compared to the people who needed their services was far, far, far
more favorable than is presently the case. War-time North Vietnam
was, after all, not nearly the fast-growing cash economy that it is
now. People are, therefore, likely to have far less reason to want
to bribe a government official.
I'm afraid that, since I'm no longer a Vietnam resident, I don't have
any direct contacts with the Labor Ministry for getting the latest
pay scale info. But I bet someone else in VSG would be able to help
with that.
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Aug 2, 2006 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Law on Prevention and Suppression of Corruption of 2005
This is an excellent discussion! Even without being knowledgeable about present-day corruption, I'd like to
add a few comments.
For a number of reasons, the cultural thrust in modern Vietnamese history tends towards containing corruption
rather than eliminating it. On the one hand, anti-corruption populist feelings might flare up now and then,
forcing the state to find some quick drastic measures to appease such sentiments. On the other, personal
relationships are held in utmost significance that there is an unwillingness to push the button beyond the
most egregrious cases.
I can think of two instances, both during the SVN era. The first involves high inflation and related economic
issues in the mid-1960s, provoking a great deal of sentiments esp. against ethnic Chinese businessmen in Cho
Lon, and forcing the Nguyen Cao Ky government to prosecute some and execute one. (In his memoirs,
self-serving as most war-related memoirs tend to be, Ky was quite proud of this achievement of his. Which is
telling of the then anti-corruption atmosphere as it is of Ky himself.) The second example is the
anti-corruption movement led by a Catholic priest in 1974, which brought the Thieu government a good deal of
grief as well as serious challenge for Thieu's political legitimacy.
To go back to a far earlier era, the other day I happened to read Jacob Ramsay's fine JSEAS article (June
2004) on bribery during the anti-Catholic campaigns of the imperial Nguyens in the 1830s and 1940s.
Extortion and bribery were "unremarkable features in imperial Vietnam," but reached a new cycle during this
cycle. Whether it was a precursor to modern corruption, the episode showed a great deal of (1) political
tension between state and society and (2) moral ambiguity among ordinary Vietnamese about corruption.
Finally, to the issue of punitive measures, there is always the cousin (sibling?) issue of deterrence. There
is a long history of the state holding executions that were widely publicized - and public, even spectacular.
In one of the best short stories of the pre-war fiction writer Nguyen Tuan, execution by the sword was
described as something of an art, in which the executor's aim was to have the chopped head of his victim
still slightly attached on the throat. I suspect that contemporary enforcement of corruption (and the
sentencing and executing of those found guilty) still relies partly on this appeal of putative deterrence.
Sorry for going off the tangent - and for the quasi-gruesome image. But it's only to add to the complicated
cultural experience of corruption on top of its legal aspects.
~Tuan