The Supreme People's Court of Vietnam: Benchbook Online

Main tasks and practical skills:

• During the preparation for hearing, the Judge should conduct conciliation to enable the litigants to reach an agreement on the resolution of the case (except cases where conciliation is neither allowed nor conducted).
• Cases where conciliation is not allowed (Item 1 of Article 181 of the CPC):
  - Civil cases requesting for compensation for damages to State property caused by an illegal act of the person causing the damage, such as a fraudulent action of appropriation of State property, misusing one’s trust to appropriate the property, illegally obtaining the property, damaging or intentionally foiling the State property, etc.
  - Some cases involving State property can be conciliated. For example, a bank gave a loan to a farmer for him to do the farming. Due to objective conditions, the farmer has made losses and is not able to return the loan and its interests to the bank. Where there is a dispute on the loan contract, the Court shall still be able to conduct conciliation for the bank to reduce the interests for the borrower.
  - Civil cases arising from transactions which are contrary to laws or social morals.
• Cases where conciliation is not conducted:
  - A defendant is intentionally absent despite his/her being duly summoned by the Court for the second time;
  - A litigant can not take part in the conciliation for a proper reason;
  - A litigant (being the wife or husband in a divorce case) is a person who has lost the capacity for civil acts.
• Procedure for conciliation: The Court must summon all the persons relating to the resolution of the case to the conciliation meeting. If the resolution of the case relates to all litigants in the case and there are one or more litigants absent, the Judge should adjourn the meeting to open another meeting in the full presence of the litigants.
• If the case involves different legal relations that relate to separate litigants and the resolution of a particular relation only concerns a litigant who is present, not an absent litigant, the Judge shall conduct conciliation over the issues concerning the litigants who are present.
• The Court should consider each particular request of the litigants with respect to the case, in order to conduct the conciliation on each request in a proper order.
• During the conduct of conciliation, in addition to following Article 184 of the CPC, depending on the legal relations, the Judge shall disseminate legal provisions relating to the resolution of the case to the litigants, for them to understand their rights and obligations and then voluntarily come to an agreement on the resolution of the case. The Judge shall analyze legal consequences of a successful conciliation for the litigants (on relationship between the litigants, payment of the court fees, etc.) The Judge shall not say which litigant is right and which is wrong nor the orientation of hearing in the case of failed agreement, etc.
• The Judge should issue a decision on recognition of the agreement reached by the litigants if they have reached an agreement on the resolution of the case.
• Where no litigant changes the opinions on such agreement within seven days from the date when the minutes of conciliation is made, the Judge who presides over the conciliation shall issue a decision on recognition of the agreement reached by the litigants. If the presiding Judge cannot issue such decision due to an objective hindrance, the Chief Justice of the Court shall assign another Judge to issue the decision.
• The Judge shall only issue a decision on recognition of the agreement reached by the litigants, if the litigants have reached an agreement on the resolution of the whole case (legal relations, requests of the litigants with respect to the case) and the court fees. Where the litigants have reached an agreement on the resolution of the whole case but have not reached an agreement on the liability for the court fees, the Court shall not recognize the agreement and shall prepare for hearing the case.
• Where the litigants have reached an agreement on the resolution of part of the case, the Court shall record in the minutes of conciliation which part has been agreed and which part has not been agreed, as provided in Item 1 of Article 186 of the CPC and issue a decision on bringing the case to trial, except cases where there exists a ground for temporarily or completely suspending the resolution of the case.