Ideology and professionalism: the resurgence of the Vietnamese bar

Abstract

The legal profession is crucial to a democratic society and is one of speciality. The legal profession is, primarily, necessary to ensure the constitutional rights of the citizen, the right to be protected, and the right to defense counsel where rights and interests are violated. Nguyen Dinh Loc (2001) Minister of Justice In the cause of building a socialist state based on rule of law, the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam have issued a number of resolutions, directives and legal normative documents to improve the state apparatus and laws (Hoang The Lien 2002). In early 2001, as part of the legal reform process, the Politburo of the Party Central Committee issued a resolution on future reforms to the judicial branch, 1 laying the foundation for legal reform in Vietnam and resulting in a number of legal normative documents being passed. These documents regulated judicial activities and generally supported the aim of building a law-based socialist state in Vietnam. This chapter seeks to analyse how individual lawyers and their organisations can be strengthened and consolidated as part of Vietnam's legal reform. In order to address this issue, the chapter will first explore the history of lawyers in Vietnam. It examines the different points of view and attitudes of governmental organisations and judicial organs towards legal practitioners. It then continues with a case study of the Nam Cam case—the largest and most infamous criminal case in Vietnamese legal history—to illustrate the shortcomings of the current legal reforms. The chapter concludes by arguing for further changes to secure the role of lawyers in judicial reform.