Creating legal foundation for a new stage of legal assistance service

07/06/2016
On June 6th, Deputy Minister Nguyen Khanh Ngoc chaired the seminar about the survey results of legal assistance demands and the implementation of the Law on Legal assistance. The seminar was attended by some international organizations and other Vietnamese relating organs.
The citizen’s awareness of legal assistance is still low
According to the summary data of the implementation of Law on Legal assistance from 2007 to 2014, nearly one million people were assisted, legal assistance for women in general and women who are victims of domestic violence in particular is being focused on in order to protect women rights.
However, the report on the legal assistance demands showed that the citizens of surveyed areas still had very little awareness of law in general and legal assistance in particular. Many citizens were not able to find a protection or assistance for their legal problems.
Among the citizens who had not received legal assistance yet, 77 out of 185 (41%) citizens that were asked said they had not received legal assistance because they had no need for it. However, there were sill 78 citizens (42%) said that they needed legal assistance but knew nothing about it and 10 out of  185 citizens said they refused legal assistance.
From the results above, it is clear that the citizens awareness of law is still limited. Due to the lack of knowledge and information about legal assistance, neither the citizens have been proactive to find legal protection for their rights and benefits nor resolve their dispute legitimately yet.
Creating legal foundation for a new stage of legal assistance service
Speaking at the seminar, Deputy Minister Nguyen Khanh Ngoc emphasized that after almost 10 years of implementation, the 2006 Law on Legal assistance have accomplished many certain achievements,  positively contributed to the solving of legal problems, protected the rights and benefits of milions of citizens, helped stabilizing politic status and citizens life, maintaining social order and promoting development. Base on the results of reviewing and researching the operation of legal assistance service, central and local organs are building the Law on Legal assistance (amended).
The reviewing results also show that individuals and organizations are paying attention to many contents of the Law on Legal assistance (amended), such as subjects, scope, fields and methods of legal assistance; the operation of Legal assistance centers…
The seminar will be held for 2 days, the 6th and 7th of June. The delegates who attend the Seminar will exchange some contents of the General report, Report of 9 provinces, some primary proposals for the Law on Legal assistance (amended)…