Reform in Viet Nam

Reforming a country's entire legal system is a mammoth job in the best of times; doing it in the midst of a civil war seems virtually impossible. Yet last year South Viet Nam actually put a complete new constitution into effect. Now the country's legal experts are trying to align existing laws with the idealistic document. It is no easy task. The constitution strongly reflects contemporary Western notions of justice, but much of Viet Nam's legal structure is still based on the philosophical teachings of Confucius. To make matters worse, Vietnamese statutes include a bastardized version of the Napoleonic Code, and there is a confusing body of case law arising from decisions reached by wartime courts set up in haste by the government.

As a first step, the new charter's provision for an independent supreme court has been implemented by the National Assembly. The Supreme Court will consolidate the two highest tribunals, which handle criminal and civil cases (Court of Cassation) and administrative cases (Council of State). A joint session of the National Assembly will elect the court's 15 judges to six-year terms. Their extensive powers will include the right to interpret the constitution, decide on the dissolution of political parties opposed to the republican form of government, and review all laws, decrees and administrative decisions. Most important, the Supreme Court will appoint all lower-court judges; the positions will no longer be political plums to be awarded by executive whim. Plans call for legally trained justices of the peace to be placed in every district, bringing the law to the province level for the first time.

An initial test of the new court's courage will come from its right to rule on the constitutionality of the six star-chamber courts that were created by the government to try cases related to the war. Whether the Supreme Court justices will dare to challenge those capricious representatives of the executive remains to be seen. But the star cham bers are clearly in need of some sort of control. Presided over by judge advocates with no legal training, those courts have allowed no pre-trial examination or right of appeal. Moreover, they have been ruling on both military and civilian matters. In addition to 5,000 army deserters tried since February, 700 civilians have been brought before the bar and charged with political crimes and profiteering; 98% of the defendants were found guilty, and 70 were sentenced to death.

Dual System. South Vietnamese legal experts are also at work revising outmoded civil and criminal codes. Particularly confusing is a dual legal system inherited from the French. One group of laws was created for the central part of the country, which was administered by the Viet emperor; other laws were written for Cochin China in the south, which was an outright colony controlled by the French governor. The differing legal standards are still applied today. Fornication, for example, was made a crime in central Viet Nam, reflecting strict Confucian traditions. No such statutes are in effect in the sophisticated south, where most of the French lived. Insulting the dignity of a woman in public is a crime in the south, but not in the center, where such an act would be unthinkable anyway. In the central city of Hue, a sworn statement of innocence before the statue of Buddha serves as admissible evidence. Not in southern Saigon.

Aggravating the problem of finding a workable legal system are ineffectual bar associations and a nationwide short age of legal talent. There are only some 200 practicing lawyers in a country of 17 million people. Because of this, U.S. AID has agreed to provide a $400,000 grant to finance a review of the new codes by American international-law specialists.

In the end, however, legal reforms can succeed only if the men behind them have the ability and the will to carry them out. They must also serve the needs of the society for which they are designed. Professor Jerome Cohen, an Asian law expert at Harvard Law School, points out that "an independent judiciary is a fragile phenomenon. You can write the most beautiful code in the world, but unless it suits the culture, the legal provisions will remain just pieces of paper."

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