Any official found to have issued or signed legal documents with irregularities should be strictly punished, said head of the Ministry of Justice's Legal Document Checking Department, Le Hong Son, in an interview with the Tien Phong Newspaper.

Mr. Le Hong Son

Officials who sign documents causing damages must also be held to account for any damages caused by those documents, he added. 

What is the real reason behind this phenomenon of illegal documents?

Well, I can say for sure that the actual power of officials to issue legal documents remains quite limited. Even those which are issued sometimes show their ineffectiveness in the face of reality.

One difficulty facing the process of regulations and legally issued documents, especially in the climate of rapid change we are seeing in the country, is to bridge the gap between bureaucracy and peoples' real needs.

The 'stick and carrot' system currently in place makes things unclear. People who fulfill their duties are not rewarded, while those who do not do their proper jobs go unpunished. Many violators only receive a warning. In some cases, those who issue fraudulent documents are even commended or promoted.

If we do not take steps to rectify the situation there will be serious effects for the whole society.

You are on record as saying that private interest groups have had an effect on the issuance of documents. What is the best way to prevent this?

Private lobbies are something that have existed for a long time, especially in developed countries. But the mechanisms in place here to deal with corruption in the system remain vague. Many private interests can take advantage of loopholes in legally issued documents. Preventing this, however, is another issue.

In my opinion, it is necessary to search out and detect any loopholes in regulation. In any case, the system of identification and regulation must be transparent if we are to regain public trust. In order to do this, any violating officials must be punished.

If the supervision of legal documents remains internal, do you think that the system could remain objective?

It is true that we lack an independent body to judge whether or not documents are strictly legal. But we are considering setting up a review board, which would be independent. In order to do this, however, we would need to establish well-defined jurisdictions so as to make sure that all documents are legal and in line with current regulations. 

This task can be assigned to People’s Court to ensure objectiveness and independence. Currently, we have an agency which is responsible for supervising the legal document issuance. However, for some reasons, it often ignores mistakes in a wrong document and then approves it.

Can you tell us a little bit about the current system for checking legally issued documents?

I think that the checking remains weak. The Legal Document Checking Department specialises in checking legal documents and then makes proposals to help management agencies. And the capacity of the staff is also weak.

Currently, the ministries of Justice and Internal Affairs and national assembly committees are responsible for checking legal documents. These agencies must tighten their supervision.

Any official who violates must be punished, even leaders who sign documents. If legally issued documents translate into negative impacts for communities or society, these officials must be held liable, and compensate for any damages. 

Thank you.