The Legal and Judicial Reform during the Renovation Period in Vietnam

I. The Reform of the Vietnamese Legal SystemSince the "Doi moi" Policy was carried out in Vietnam in 1986, we Progressively have been abolishing the bureaucratic centralized economic management and building the multi-sectoral commodity economy regulated by the market mechanism.The 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam officially provides the construction of the market economy in Vietnam.The Vietnamese State has striven to build a Jurisdictional State of the People and has implemented the policy on the international and regional integration.In that context, the role of the law is being heightened.The Law during the social renovation period in Vietnam deeply attached to the new task of the State and closely associated with politics.It is the fact that the law not only plays the "Service" role but also is use as the symbol of value of the sound policies.The Vietnamese Law at present performs the function to establish the minimum sphere of power and define adequately the rights for the people those are under the management in order to prevent false interventions, abuse authority and oppression upon them.To meet this demand, our State has set up the Administrative Courts and the Economic Courts belonging to the People's Court system.And thus, justice and democracy -the two legal fundamental principles, are essential basis for the activities of the State and the whole legal system, which are regulated in the constitutional law, the administrative law, civil law, labour law, economic law, criminal law, criminal procedure, etc.It is important to apply the law as the "Service" tool for the Vietnamese market in order to create the equal legal position within the traders.Our 1992 Constitution (Article 22) provides the primary legal basic for this matter.Furthermore, the Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party held at the beginning of the year 2001 will put emphasis on every economic sector that is a component element of our economy.Keeping up the regular operation market, it needs to undertake the essential conditions for the market.Primarily, that requires to create and maintain a fundamental infrastructure for the production.It is vital for productive activity, which is known as the service, the information service, the prediction, the advertising service, the insurance, the intermediary, the credit, the payment, etc.Those mentioned are the infrastructure of the market.The role of the law on conducting the market in the transferred economic period is concretized into the following directions :a) The regulated extent : Provisions are immediately provided to create the general legal situations for the establishment and activity of the market.For this question, we are building the long term legislative strategy and promulgating the laws adapted the needs of the market economy.For example, the new promulgated laws will be more specific and of clear-cut; promulgating the under-legal documents is restricted; the regional and international intergrations are speeded up; the priority is to undertake the agreements with the other members of ASEAN and APEC and to step up the pace of getting admitted to the WTO.b) Continually perfecting the internal laws and the law on foreign investment creates the general legal basis for all the enterprises.In June 2000, the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam amended the Law on Foreign Investment in Vietnam, which establishes the more favorable legal environment for the foreign investors who want to invest in Vietnam.The new amendment and supplement in the Law on Foreign Investment are shown in the following aspects:Firstly, one of the things that the foreign investors pay much attention on is how to reduce the risk in business to the lowest level.The Law on Foreign Investment in Vietnam is amended to allow the enterprises with foreign-owned capital to buy foreign