Public Service Ethics in Implementation of State Power in Vietnam Today

Nguyen Thi Minh Trang

Soc Trang Politics School, Soc Trang City, Vietnam

ABSTRACT: Today, along with the process of integration and globalization, the development of Industry 4.0 poses significant challenges in the process of managing and exercising state power. In which, public service ethics is an extremely important factor, a criterion and an indispensable condition for evaluating the ethics of cadres and civil servants; is a close connection between civil servants and public service to ensure the effect and efficiency of state operation. With this article, the author mentions the issue of public service ethics in organizing the exercise of state power in our country for the past time and the urgent requirements set forth.

KEY WORDS: Public service ethics, State power, Vietnam.

1. The role of public service ethics and its impacts on the process of organizing the exercise of state power

Public service ethics is totality of legal standards, principles and standards enforced by a team of cadres and civil servants. Or in principle, public service ethics can be understood to be ethical values and legal standards applied to cadres and civil servants, the rules about the relationship between civil servants and public employees, between civil servants and the collective and society in public service activities in order to make public service activities achieve the highest efficiency, ensuring the position as a representative of public power.

Public service ethics has been reinforced by various means, especially institution (Law and sub-law documents) to ensure the exercise of state power. As stated in Article 15 of the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants 2008: “Cadres and civil servants must practice diligence, thrif, integrity, righteousness and impartiality in public service activities”. Our state is a socialist rule of law state, but one of basic characteristics of the rule of law state that we have been building is a real state of the people, by the people and for people, due to which the public service activities of cadres and civil servants are oriented to the people to serve, for the sake of the people and society, to truly become “servants” of the people.

When it comes to public service ethics, it refers to two basic elements that form the public service, including people and work that they have to undertake. The work that civil servants undertake is called public service, the work that civil servants undertake is the entrustment and trust of the public to the state and through the civil servants to perform the foundation for performing all these work kinds. The work performed by civil servants has a different value and meaning than the work performed by workers in other sectors. The work performed by civil servants in the public sector is the state public service. The work undertaken by civil servants is an important part of the Government of all countries in the world. Because of the importance and special role of the work that civil servants undertake, each civil servant himself/herself must be aware of his/her responsibilities in each of those works – that is, they carry out the works according to the principles and with good ethical qualities; perform duties honestly and without personal interest; have right attitude and behavior and must always be improved; take work efficiency as a joy, a reason to live and a motivation to strive.

– Education and correction of behaviors of civil servants:

Right from the moment of birth, people are placed in an environment of relationships with behavior, communication and standards of the good – the bad, the good – the evil. In the environment, the ethics is formed and it is considered as behaviors and standards that have been recognized and directed by society and the community. People are a product of people themselves and therefore when they create the standards of society, family and community, such standard values will affect themselves. When we acknowledge such ethics, people must behave and work according to those minimum standards. The adjustment of behaviors through ethical standards is more voluntary than the adjustment by law or politics with coercive and compulsory elements. Together with ethical standards and values for everyone to aim for, the existence, movement and development will be ensured on the basis of the harmony of interest groups. Adjusting human behavior through ethical standards requires each person to be self-disciplined in behavior according to standards. On the other hand, due to public opinion’s influences, individuals adjust their behavior, by encouraging behaviors that are consistent with values, opposing, condemning and preventing wrongdoing. Through ethical education, individuals acquire social ethical values and form personal ethical qualities.

Same with public service ethics, it also comes from the purpose of adjusting human behavior, but people here are the contingent of civil servants and the adjusted behavior is the part that this contingent is directly or indirectly performing. All are for the purpose that the behavior of civil servants is in the right direction, in accordance with the standards of the organization, of the public service system that we are aiming for. But before they can adjust these behaviors, the first step is to start with education, educating them to see what is good, what should be done, what belongs to ethics category, in an aspect they know that those things go against human conscience.

– Impact on the thinking and perception of civil servants

The ethical perception of each person will attach ethical actions attached to the perception of ethical values. And in most cases there is a blend of ethical sense and ethical action. Ethical perception is a process that is both outward and inward. Outward perception: taking social ethical principles and standards as the subject of perception to transform into personal ethical sense and qualities. Inward perception: self-assessment of one’s own attitudes and behaviors in comparison with social ethical principles and standards, thereby forming views and living principles for oneself. Ethical perception brings ethical knowledge, ethical consciousness, individuals through ethical knowledge, social ethical consciousness has become personal ethicality. Since then, individuals understand and believe in social ethical standards, ideals, and values that become the basis for individuals to adjust their behavior and practice ethics.

– Orienting civil servants to general pattern of public service activities:

Everyone has different thoughts and perceptions when looking at any problem, so we cannot include all those perceptions in the process of exercising public service, but all must be generalized, forming common patterns for all civil servants to rely on to implement. Because when exercising the duties, a civil servant carries the responsibility of a person representing the State, also known as a representative of public power, so all actions, words, gestures, manners … must have accuracy, standards, create high reliability, build trust for the people, because just a certain mistake, no matter how small, can lead to undesired consequences and the recipients or the people only know that these people represent public power but not consider them as an individual. The core of the institution of public service ethics is to be able to do these things.

2. Actual situation of public service ethics for the process of organizing the exercise of state power

From the roles and influences mentioned above, it can be seen that if there is no prompt proper adjustment, it will lead to the following consequences:

– Degradation in ethics, lifestyle

Actual situation of degradation in ethics and lifestyle in a large number of cadres and party members is gradually becoming a problem that forces us to recognize them in the fight to build and strengthen the political system. The manifestation of degradation in ethics and lifestyle is opportunism, pragmatism, self-seeking, corruption, bribery, irresponsible and luxurious lifestyle, bureaucracy, not doing things as said, doing things against contrary to guidelines, directives, resolutions of the Party, policies and laws of the State, likes listening to achievements, be afraid of listening and telling the truth… Preventing, repelling the degradation in ideology, politics, ethics and lifestyle of a large number of cadres and party members, especially leaders and managers at all levels, is one of the three urgent problems to ensure the effective exercise of power.

Due to the impact of many objective and subjective factors, including negative sides of the market economy due to the fact that cadres and civil servants lack cultivation and training; have unstable, confused and fluctuating ideological stance; fall into selfish, narrow-minded individualism, tempted by material interests, and fail to fulfill responsibilities and obligations to the Party and the people. At the same time, organizations have not yet promoted their roles and responsibilities in fostering, educating and managing their contingent of cadres and civil servants.

– Corruption status

President Ho Chi Minh clearly pointed out the consequences of corruption on ethics, “it spoils the pure spirit and austere will of our cadres. It destroys our revolutionary ethics including diligence, thrift, integrity and righteousness” [1]. As for the Party, our Party considers corruption to be one of the four risks and challenges that threaten the regime’s existence. The risk of corruption is particularly emphasized because the consequences of corruption are great. Corruption is one of the factors hindering the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and policies; at the same time corruption is a cause of discontent and reduced trust among the people.

According to Law on Anti-corruption 2018, Clause 1, Article 3, the concept of corruption is referred as follows: “Corruption is an act of a person with a position or power who takes advantage of that position or power for personal gain”. The term “self-seeking” in this case is explained as follows “self-seeking means that a person with a position or power has taken advantage of his/her position or power to illegitimately obtain material or non-material benefits”[2].

In 2022, according to the Government’s report, the investigation agency received and settled 687 cases, 1,439 defendants committing the corruption crime; in which 436 new prosecution cases and 929 defendants (an increase of 105 cases, 177 defendants compared to the reporting period last year), concluded the investigation and proposed to prosecute 336 cases/765 defendants; suspended the investigation of 34 cases/50 defendants^[3]; suspended investigation of 08 cases/03 defendants^[4]; changed the charges of 04 cases/02 defendants; merged 01 case; transferred to the Criminal Investigation Agency – Border Guard Command to investigate according to its competence 01 case/02 defendants, currently investigating 303 cases/617 defendants. Damages in settled cases were over VND 2,984 billion, 233,317.5m² of land, 21 certificates of land use rights; assets revoked in settled cases: over VND 2,356 billion, 179,251.5m² of land, 02 certificates of land use rights, blocking the amount of over VND 1.4 billion, more than 20,000 shares and distraining 10 real estates (worth over VND 100 billion). The first-instance court sentenced 08 defendants to life imprisonment and death; sentenced to imprisonment from over 15 years to 20 years for 43 defendants; imprisonment from over 7 years to 15 years for 106 defendants; imprisonment from over 3 years to 7 years for 232 defendants; imprisonment from 3 years or less for 516 defendants…, thereby showing that the actual situation of corruption is becoming more and more serious and complicated, the corrupt subjects are discovered to be those who have high status in society, hold high positions in the Party and State. Therefore, the level of violations is more and more sophisticated, the tricks are increasingly dangerous, and the nature is increasingly complex. All are creating instability for the state, for society.

– Bureaucracy, wastefulness situation

Bureaucracy is a disease, a negative phenomenon that often happens to the leadership and management apparatus. According to President Ho Chi Minh, this is a very dangerous “disease”, bureaucracy also manifests in the diseases of ostentatiousness, formality, disregard for efficiency, heavily relying on papers and passivity. Bureaucracy is a good land for the production and maintenance of diseases of subjectivity, haste, simplicity, voluntarism and dogmatism. Bureaucracy benefits those who suffer from such diseases, and it is self-interest that is why some forms of bureaucracy persist and become chronic diseases that are difficult to cure. Therefore, we must resolutely oppose bureaucracy, away from the masses.

However, to fight against this disease is a long-term and complicated struggle, to overcome and eliminate it thoroughly, we must conduct comprehensively, synchronously and regularly with many positive measures. First of all, ideology development work must focus on upholding revolutionary qualities, upholding the sense of serving the people and truly respecting and ensuring the mastery by the masses. Because the harmful effects of bureaucracy, orders and authoritativeness are great, they make the Party and State agencies become unable to grasp the actual situation, understand the aspirations and life of the masses, and fail to promote intellectual capacity of the masses, leading to unscrupulous or even wrong decisions and policies, hurting the relationship between the Party, the State and the masses.

Wastefulness is a dangerous disease, but in fact we have not really considered it a dangerous disease to find an effective remedy to control and treat it, wastefulness is the first step to corruption, from wastefulness will easily lead to corrupt behavior. The scattered, inefficient investment or cumbersome apparatus with many layers, spending at high level and contrary to regulations, ostentatiousness and formality, cumbersome administrative procedures… all are manifestations of wastefulness. Corruption is a great danger, wastefulness is also a danger, but this danger is more dangerous because it is disguised in many different forms, with many cover layers, the important thing is to be difficult to detect, nobody is responsible and we don’t know who to blame?

3. Causes of the above actual situation

– Not attaching importance to law propaganda and education in general and public service ethics in particular.

Because there has not been enough attention to the education of the sense of responsibility as well as the handling of ethical violations; lack of specific regulations on the regime of responsibility of cadres and civil servants; The mechanism of management, inspection and supervision of organizations and immediate managers as well as of the people for the activities of cadres and civil servants is still limited, not regular, not serious and not synchronized. In organizing and directing the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies, there are no clear regulations on the responsibilities of the lead agency and the coordinating agencies. The ethical education is slowly renewed, the educational content is not specific and not suitable for each subject… Many cadres and civil servants also disregard ethical standards and personality, so they are not strict with themselves, do not regularly practice and cultivate sense of responsibility; are infected with bureaucracy, command, subjectivity, self-interest, self-seeking, local mindset.

– State power is not strictly controlled

State power is the exclusive property of the state. That specific expression is the state’s monopoly on state coercion that only the state has. This power, combined with the access to information sources that ordinary people cannot have, creates opportunities for those who are holding power and information to be able to do actions that bring in interests and benefits for themselves and acquaintances in an illegitimate and illegal manner, causing damage to the common interests of the whole community. This creates the possibility of corruption in the civil authority apparatus. This is the first cause, the necessary condition of corruption. The degree of corruption is greater in places where there is less control over state power and control over sources of the State’s confidential information. There are many causes for failure to control state power:

Unclear and weak institution is also a cause of corruption. Functions and tasks of agencies in the state apparatus overlap, conflict, fail to clearly define the authority and responsibility of the state management apparatus. The incompleteness of state management institution is a cause of corruption. Incomplete institution leads to arbitrary status of civil servants. Civil servants have more conditions to perform their behavior at their discretion. Incentives for corrupt behavior arise wherever civil servants have broad discretion and little accountability. A necessary condition for corruption is that civil servants are entitled to apply rewards and punishments at their discretion. This is a condition for civil servants to have the opportunity to extort and harass socio-economic subjects to benefit themselves.

The state administrative management institution in the fields are incomplete, unclear regulations are the basis for the existence of “ask – give” mechanism. This mechanism not only causes difficulties for state administrative management but also is the basis for those who have positions and powers take advantage for personal gain. Or the more complicated, ambiguous and confusing the regulations are, the more opportunities there are for corruption.

In addition, administrative procedures are also one of the contents of state administrative management institution. Administrative procedures are more complicated, difficult to understand, require many steps, are not transparent, etc.. creating favorable conditions for civil servants to extort and harass in the process of providing public administrative services to individuals and organizations. Not only that, the incomplete institution makes it difficult to detect corrupt behavior because corrupt people can take advantage of the loopholes of the institution to justify their illegal actions.

There is a lack of effective power control mechanism in the state apparatus. Ineffective control mechanism lead to the fact that the state is unable to control the use of public power and other public resources. The mutual binding among agencies in the state apparatus and among civil servants has not been given due attention. The looser the restraint of power between agencies and civil servants is, the more opportunities for corruption to occur there are. Because, in the absence of an effective control mechanism, it will be difficult to detect the misuse of power for profiteering. Creating an effective control mechanism is an important measure to prevent and combat corruption.

– Impact of factors of integration and open-door

In the process of international integration with interwoven positive and negative factors, it is in that integration that we do not anticipate difficulties, challenges, the old, the confused, the attraction of the “new” things that seem to be very beautiful but include hidden great dangers inside, they pull people into a changing machinery cycle of integration, development, and erroneous thoughts, fluctuations in ideology and perception also appear in response to temptations of money, wealth and status… sometimes they were willing to trample on the traditional good ethical values of the nation, hierarchy, order and morality are gradually lost, replaced by objectionable actions, negativity, indifference to public service, all are going deep into the awareness of the cadres and civil servants and become a problem for the country to deal with, prevent and repel.

3. Solutions to improve public service ethics in the process of organizing the exercise of state power

Firstly, build and improve the institution of public service ethics – consider it a core element in the process of administrative reform, in the fight against corruption and other evils.

The institution of public service ethics is an important part of making our administrative system become cleaner and more beautiful, from which the effect and efficiency will be higher. Thereby the beautiful image of our civil servants will be rebuilt, making the people’s trust higher and higher. The formation of standards of public service ethics of cadres and civil servants is very important.

In the context of the country’s renovation with the integration process, there are many difficult and challenging problems that have a significant impact on our contingent of cadres and civil servants, making our contingent of cadres and civil servants fall into problems of society. There are many causes of such actual situation and one of the causes leading to the ethical degradation is the introduction of a pragmatic lifestyle in a part of the population, but besides that, there are also subjective causes of civil servants such as: lack of training, lack of compliance with the provisions of the code of conduct in the public service system, but there are also objective factors from outside that make it difficult for civil servants to adhere to mandatory standards of ethics, behavior and they self-create new behaviors.

Therefore, in the process of improving the institution of public service ethics, it is necessary to affirm that it is an important issue in the administrative reform program, and at the same time, review, detect and soon eliminate unnecessary and irrational procedures that cause trouble for the people. Along with that, the State needs to correct and renew the property registration of civil servants and income declaration, considers it an important stage of the state management process; on the other hand, strengthen education, improve quality and capacity for cadres and civil servants, uphold the responsibility to comply with the provisions of the law, diligence, thrift, integrity, righteousness, justice and impartiality, keep a simple, clean, strong lifestyle, respect and devotedly sere the people. In addition, we may build commitments of civil servants and organizations about the behavior and ethics of civil servants in serving citizens. Public service ethics of cadres and civil servants is the core factor to ensure effective state operation and management, therefore in administrative reform with a market economy, it is required to have better and more appropriate mechanisms and legal provisions to maintain and promote basic values of public service system – a public service system for the people.

Secondly, cognitive education, self-training process of civil servants

This is a kind of solution to uphold ethical values, promote self-training and cultivation of cadres and civil servants. Encouraging and honoring the direction to the good for the ideal of serving the people, the country, the common cause, for all people of cadres and civil servants. In the market economy, this type of solution must be even highly valued, respecting ethical values, not self-interest, and selfish. Implementation of this type of solution needs to strengthen the work of education and self-education; reward and honor those who do good work, serve devotedly and have a high public service performance.

Ethics for cadres and civil servants is the process of self-perception and self-training to confront and overcome difficulties and challenges, thus becoming a true “servant” of the people. According to President Ho Chi Minh: “Revolutionary ethics does not fall from the sky. It develops and strengthens through daily enduring struggle and training, just as the more polished a jade is, the brighter it becomes, the more refined gold is, the clearer it becomes.” According to him, ethics is the “root” of the revolutionary cadre: Just as a river has water only when it has a source, without a source, the river dries up. A tree must have a root, if it has no root, the tree withers. A revolutionary must have ethics, failing so, no matter how talented such revolutionary is, he/she will not be able to lead the people.”[5]

Fourthly, solutions to innovate the management mechanism in the process of exercising state power

This solution is aimed at an objective of renovating and improving the mechanism so that cadres and civil servants have conditions to promote ethics, perform their tasks and serve the people in a good manner. Therefore, in order to implement it, it is necessary to clearly define the functions and tasks of each agency and organization; each cadre, civil servant suitable for the management and service in the new period. The mechanism must eliminate the factors that lead to the possibility of negativity, ask – give for and harassing citizens in operational organization, in the procedures of the State. Vietnam is undergoing administrative reform, creating a new model of reasonable operational organization of the state administrative apparatus as well as creating a mechanism for cadres and civil servants to do the good, and have conditions to contribute, promote capacity to serve the country and the people. In addition, it is necessary to improve the management mechanism for cadres and civil servants; inspect and supervise; prevent and strictly punish behavior that violates public service ethics. In order to implement this solution, it is necessary to have clear and specific regulations on the behaviors that cadres and civil servants are not allowed to do; sanctions for ethical violations. Strengthen inspection and examination of public service; strengthen discipline; fight against corruption, bureaucracy. Strictly sanction acts of violating public service ethics, depending on the seriousness of violations; including criminal prosecution. In addition, the improvement of cadre and civil servant management mechanism needs to clarify the authority to manage each type of cadre and civil servant at each level, each branch, each agency, unit, individual and head so that they realize their rights and responsibilities in management and take responsibility for the public service activities of officials and civil servants under their authority.

Fifthly, solutions to improve capacity and qualifications of the contingent of civil servants; at the same time, have mechanism to encourage and motivate cadres and civil servants with material and spiritual treatment, especially talented people.

Although professional qualifications and capacity of cadres and civil servants have been raised to a level for the past time, but not really on par with the requirements of the task, there are still many shortcomings and limitations in some aspects such as knowledge and capacity for state management of society, skills in performing public service. For our country, in the process of building and improving the socialist rule-of-law state of the people, by the people and for the people, the discovery, attraction and promotion of talented people to participate in the contingent of cadres and civil servants with particularly important role and always concerned by the Party and State. In public service activities, talented people can be identified according to criteria such as professional ethics, understanding level and professional capacity.

The amended and supplemented Law on cadres, civil servants and public employees  2019 in Article 6 on Policy for talented people in public service activities stipulates: The State has a policy to discover attract, promote and treat talented people; The Government stipulates a policy framework for promotion and treatment for talented people in public service activities. This is considered a new step, a condition to improve the quality of this contingent and ensure the effect and efficiency of state management. With the objective of serving the people and serving the society on the basis of the provisions of the law, it can be seen that public service activities include activities related to state management in the fields of economy, culture, society such as strategy formulation and implementation; consulting and policy making; execution and performance of specific assigned tasks. These activities require compliance with public service ethics, standard communication, dedication, diligence, fairness, creativity in law observance, and ensure the effect and efficiency of the State agencies. Therefore, in public service activities, civil servants are considered as talented people if they have the qualities, qualifications and capabilities to successfully complete their assigned tasks in a particular field.

In addition, improving the preferential treatment policy and a reasonable salary regime is an indispensable requirement. Reform to ensure that salary are properly paid to cadres and civil servants, so that they do not corrupt, harass, it is required to do a part-time job for living, and do negative things. Salary and bonuses must show the value of dedication and labor of cadres and civil servants, creating motivation to perform tasks. There are regimes and policies to encourage conscientiousness in performing public service; apply appropriate material and spiritual rewards for cadres and civil servants who do good, dedicated and clean work.

Sixthly, Strengthen the inspection and supervision, in which upholding the people’s supervisory role for cadres, civil servants and public service activities.

Strengthen the inspection and supervision of the implementation of the law for cadres and civil servants through civil society institutions, and at the same time conduct regular reviews and promptly detect shortcomings of legal documents on state management for amendment and supplement according to the reality of state and society. Life reality is a measure of the law’s rationality. The law that is reasonable, in accordance with natural and social rules, will be able to better regulate social relations. Check, inspect and supervise public service activities of civil servants in order to prevent and promptly handle violations and at the same time deter them to avoid deviant acts, to have more sense of their responsibility for their duties. Thereby, public service ethics, attitude of serving the people, sense of organization and discipline of civil servants will be improved, work efficiency will be higher, and the effects of the law will be stricter and more thorough. In addition, strengthening inspection and examination of public service and strict internal control to detect risks leading to negativity and corruption.

Improve and well exercise the people’s democratic rights, especially grassroots democratic rights so that the people can well exercise their right to directly and indirectly inspect and supervise public service activities of cadres and civil servants with different methods. “People know, people discuss, people do, people check”. The supervisory role of the people is very important, because power must be monitored to ensure that it is not abused, power must be exercised for the people, by the people. Therefore, it is necessary to be fully aware of the supervisory role of the people, thereby it is shown that the people have a very important role in supervising the state apparatus and the contingent of cadres and civil servants in the process of implementing tasks assigned by the people. That will be a very important step in the issue of institutional improvement. In fact, the recent cases discovered in the fight against corruption show that major problems are discovered by the people while our public authority apparatus slowly detect them.

Therefore, one of the breakthrough missions of Constitution 2013 is to create a more democratic and political legal framework, to return the substantive rights to the people so that the people can supervise the state apparatus, emphasize the true mastery role of the people in the Socialist rule of law state of Vietnam, thereby creating opportunities and a solid legal framework for the People to promote their true mastery. Promote the people’s mastery is an important motivation because it promotes the creative capacity of people as the subject of society and the content of institutional innovation can only be well exploited and promoted quickly effectively when the mastery of the people – the force for implementing successful decisions of the institution is fully and thoroughly promoted. Besides, on the people’s side, it is also necessary to be proactive in monitoring to detect shortcomings, manifestations of abuse of power, restriction of the people’s democratic rights, supervision in the policy-making process, select cadres…, showing their responsibility to the country, joining hands in building a developed country of Vietnam.

In summary, enhancing the value of Vietnam public service system is associated with improving the public service ethics of cadres and civil servants because, after all, cadres and civil servants are the ones who perform the public service, operators of the public service system and thus also improving the quality and efficiency of the process of exercising state power.

REFERENCES

1. Ho Chi Minh, Complete Volume, Volume 5 , National Political Publishing House, Hanoi;
2. Vietnam National Academy of Public Administration (2006; 2008), Public Administration, Science and Technics Publishing House;
3. Law on anti-corruption 2018;
4. Law on cadres and civil servants 2008;
5. Nguyen Canh Hop (2011), “Institution of public service”, Judicial Publishing House;
6. Dr. Huynh Khai Vinh (2001), “Some issues of ethics, lifestyle, social value standards“, Vietnam National Political Publishing House;
7. Vietnamese Dictionary (1998), Da Nang Publishing House – Center for Dictionaries;
8. Prof. Nguyen Lan (2006), “Vietnamese words and phrases”, Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House;
9. Vietnam Institute of Social Sciences (2006), “Bureaucracy, wastefulness and some solutions to prevent and combat”, Vietnam National Political Publishing House;
10. Report No. 410/BC-CP, dated October 12, 2022 of the Government on anti-corruption in 2022.

[1] Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (2006), “Bureaucracy and wastefulness and some solutions to prevent and combat” , National Political Publishing House ; p.42

[2] Clause 7, Article 3 of the Law on Anti-Corruption 2018

[3] Suspend the investigation of 34 cases/50 defendants, including: Hanoi city 03 cases/06 defendants (reason: no conclusion on assessment and asset valuation); Ho Chi Minh City 03 cases/ 01 defendant (reason: investigation term expires, not enough evidences, documents to identify committing criminal acts by the defendant, the defendant is wanted); Hai Phong City 02 cases/07 defendants (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment); Da Nang City 01 case/0 defendant (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment); Can Tho City 01 case/ 01 defendant (reason: the defendant is wanted); Ha Giang 01 case/0 defendant (reason: no conclusion of assessment); Yen Bai 01 case/ 01 defendant (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment); Bac Kan 01 case/03 defendants (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment); Vinh Phuc 01 case/ 01 defendant (reason: no conclusion of assessment); Bac Ninh 05 cases of 19 defendants (reason: no conclusion of assessment); Thanh Hoa 02 cases / 01 defendant (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment); Khanh Hoa 04 cases/02 defendants (no conclusion of assessment, not enough documents provided to serve the assessment, no defendant identified); Ninh Thuan 01 case/0 defendant (reason: no defendant of the case identified when  the investigation term expires); Dak Lak 02 cases/02 defendants (reason: waiting for conclusion of assessment and waiting for documents to be provided); Dong Nai 01 case / 01 defendant (reason: according to point a, clause 1 Article 229 of the Criminal Procedure Code); Binh Duong 04 cases/02 defendants (reason: waiting for the conclusion of assessment, the defendant is wanted); Ben Tre 01 case/03 defendants (reason: no conclusion of assessment).

[4] Suspend the investigation: 08 cases/03 defendants, including: Hanoi city 01 case/0 defendant (reason: the act does not constitute a crime); Hai Phong City 0 case/ 01 defendant (reason: the defendant died); Lang Son 01 case / 01 defendant (reason: the defendant died); Bac Kan 01 case/0 defendant (reason: the act does not constitute a crime); Lao Cai 01 case/0 defendant (reason: the time limit for criminal prosecution expires); Ha Nam 01 case/0 defendant (reason: the act does not constitute a crime); Nam Dinh 01 case/ 01 defendant (reason: exempt from criminal prosecution); Thanh Hoa 01 case/0 defendant (reason: the act does not constitute a crime); Bac Lieu 01 case/0 defendant (reason: based on point a, clause 1, Article 230 of Criminal Procedure Code 2015).

[5] Ho Chi Minh, Complete Volume , Volume 5, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi; p.252-253