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

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