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Referring to the particularly serious case involving officials from many ministries and branches from the central to local levels, former judge Truong Viet Toan said that the “rescue flight” case partly exposed the reality of many officials with positions and power today. The defendants have complicated the issue, causing harassment, forcing businesses to follow the “ask for and give” mechanism, even though this mechanism has long been abolished.
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| The "rescue flight" trial |
The first instance trial also recorded many defendants expressing remorse and speaking bitterly after their crimes were discovered. Typically, former Deputy Director of the Immigration Department (Ministry of Public Security) Tran Van Du, in response to questioning, said about his bribe-taking behavior: "It's also my bad luck, if I'm unlucky, I'll just return it to the state, it's okay"; or in the case of former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs To Anh Dung: "They proactively contacted the business, the defendant partly respected them, partly wanted to hear from the business to see if there were any difficulties or problems"...
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Mr. Truong Viet Toan assessed that these were all "false words"; some defendants "shed tears" only because they felt sorry for themselves for being unfortunately caught up in the law.
According to the former judge, the defendants in the bribery group were all experienced and had been trained in agencies and organizations. In court, although they said they were “repentant”, this was not the attitude of a defendant who “regretted” the crime he had committed.
Lawyer Hoang Trong Giap (Director of Hoang Sa Law Firm) shared the opinion that the trial process showed that some defendants colluded and shared the bribe money. The amount of money received was very large, far exceeding the income of civil servants and public employees...
“Some lawyers and defendants who received bribes said in their defense that they did not demand, harass or negotiate with the business to pay money. After being licensed, the business thanked them, so this was not giving or receiving bribes… However, these are ‘insensitive defenses’, because in court, representatives of some businesses affirmed that they were ‘forced to the extreme’, so they were forced to pay,” said lawyer Hoang Trong Giap.
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Talking about the corruption and negativity occurring among officials, Mr. Vu Pham Quyet Thang, former Deputy Inspector General of the Government, said that corruption is an inevitable law of the development process, originating from uncontrolled human greed. “Everyone has greed, I also like money, houses, land, but how to like it and how to get it is another matter,” said the former Deputy Inspector General of the Government.
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According to Mr. Thang, in the face of this rule, it is important that each cadre and party member knows how to control their greed, control their behavior, and respect their honor. "Money must be obtained through effort and intelligence, not through bribery, corruption, or negativity," said Mr. Thang.
However, he also frankly said: “There is no applause if there is only one hand. There is no corruption if there is no bribe taker and bribe giver. So the problem is not only fighting corruption but also fighting bribery. No one brings money to bribe and then sits around, drinking tea, without any benefit. Everything has a purpose, the bribe giver also seeks benefits from giving bribes,” Mr. Thang said.
Commenting, every big case starts from a small problem, as people say "many a little bit makes a big deal", here, according to him, it is possible that the official was "used to eating", "used to being fed", "used to receiving gifts" from a small position to a big position, gradually becoming an irresistible habit.
However, there are also cases where, for a long time, there was no corruption or bribery, but suddenly there was a huge amount of assets and money. "This may be because people cannot resist material temptations, cannot overcome the power of money and then fall," Mr. Thang said and emphasized, "to be a public servant, for the people, for the country, one must be wholeheartedly devoted to the common cause, must know how to restrain oneself, know how to respect honor."
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At the seminar "Education on anti-corruption with the requirement of building a culture of integrity in the new period", recently organized by the University of Law - Vietnam National University, Hanoi, delegates also raised the issue of building a culture of "integrity" in the context of a series of major corruption cases being exposed, many officials being punished.
According to the delegates, to maintain integrity, those in positions of power must control themselves, so that integrity becomes a reflex, like "normal food and drink".
Frankly, Dr. Dinh Van Minh, former Head of the Legal Department, Government Inspectorate, said that none of the corrupt officials who were recently punished were poor. From that, Mr. Minh said that to have a culture of integrity, it is necessary to control both the outside and the inside. The outside is through mechanisms and policies; the inside is through ethics and integrity.
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Regarding the work of preventing and combating corruption in recent times, former Deputy Inspector General of the Government Vu Pham Quyet Thang assessed that many positive results have been achieved. However, to prevent corruption and negativity, in addition to aiming at the mechanism of "not wanting to be corrupt", "not needing to be corrupt", "not being able to be corrupt", "not daring to be corrupt", according to him, the important issue is in the selection and use of people. If the right people are selected, everything will be good, corruption and negativity will be limited.
Further analysis, Mr. Thang said that the current process and regulations for selecting, recruiting, and appointing officials are very strict. However, sometimes this step still depends on the will of the leader and the "suggestions" of superiors. This leads to a situation where "the process and regulations are correct but the right person is not necessarily correct".
With many years of experience in adjudicating "major cases", former Judge Truong Viet Toan, former Deputy Chief Justice of the Criminal Court of Hanoi People's Court, said that in order to prevent violations, personnel work plays a very important role. "There are leaders of agencies and units who are like "little kings", deliberately doing wrong, not caring about the opinions of the staff, within the unit. Taking advantage of their position to suppress other opinions", Mr. Toan said. The consequence, according to him, is that not only does that leader commit a violation, but also many people below him commit violations.
The worrying thing that Judge Truong Viet Toan pointed out is that those violations were not detected in time, leading to the violators "climbing higher" after each term. "Some people say it is a loss in personnel work, I don't think it is a loss. Those officials caused tens, hundreds, thousands of billions of dong in damages, so it is right that they were dealt with, there is no loss here. They committed extremely serious violations, were arbitrary and arbitrary, so they need to be dealt with severely."
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Since the beginning of its term, the Central Inspection Commission has played an important role in inspecting, supervising, preventing and strictly handling violations. |
From the practice of trial, Judge Truong Viet Toan said that it is necessary to review the Government's regulations on job transfer for cadres, civil servants and public employees. "Through some cases, I have seen that heads of units have taken advantage of this regulation to transfer people with different opinions, or who are not in the same team. It is true that there are positions that need to be transferred, but there are also positions that do not necessarily need to be transferred. If we do not have strict regulations, people will take advantage of it to transfer people who give opinions and criticism, and bring in people in the same team to carry out illegal "deals", Mr. Toan warned.
Mr. Ngo Van Suu, former Head of Department 1, Central Inspection Committee, said that warning and preventing officials from violating early and from afar is very important to prevent officials from "sliding" down the path of violations. "If officials are involved in violations but are not handled from the beginning, then climb up, infiltrate deep into the apparatus, and take on important positions, the risk of causing extremely serious consequences," Mr. Suu warned.
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Former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Tien Dinh also said that early and remote prevention, preventing small violations from accumulating into major violations, is extremely important. “If we can prevent early and remote prevention, we can prevent economic losses, with figures in the hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of billions, as well as immeasurable damage to society, and also warn and help many officials escape from corruption and the law,” said Mr. Dinh.
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