During one week in March 1995 five men in Vietnam were executed by firing squad for various convictions. This article explores the issue of capital punishment given the legal structure of the country. Specifically, what are the risks that death by firing squad and other sorts of severe punishment are politically motivated? That is, are authorities using the "legal system" to silence opponents, establish scapegoats, and create opportunities for state-sponsored extortion?
There are 30 offenses which are punishable by death in Vietnam. At the heart of the problem is whether a government can properly apply the death penalty when it, itself, has no regard for the law. The death penalty is the ultimate punishment from society. It, therefore, should not be taken lightly. Legal processes must guarantee that only the guilty are condemned. A quick look at Vietnamese communist authorities and the way they approach the law is sobering. There is neither an independent judiciary nor a functioning bar in Vietnam. The role of the legal counsel is not to defend clients, but, rather, to plead the court for leniency; any person can be arrested without charge and held for an indefinite period of time. Given that a famous saying of the regime is "better to kill mistakenly than to acquit mistakenly" a fair trial in Vietnam is indeed an ephemeral thing.
The absence of a credible legal process, however, is only one aspect of the problem. According to what's on paper, the Vietnamese people have the greatest liberties in the world and the Vietnamese legal system is the fairest on earth. Standing between the civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the stark reality, though, is the communist authority. When the government flaunts, daily, laws it has adopted, what ability does it have to judge whether any individual has broken the law? What IS the law in Vietnam?
A justification for the death penalty is that an individual has inflicted egregious harm on the society or its members. And as a result, authorities, who serve as the agent of the people, administer the appropriate punishment. In Vietnam, this norm does not exist. The people and the government have no connection. In a country in which the government is unelected and arbitrary, what more likely exists is authorities who exploit the "legal" system to their advantage. To be a "lawbreaker" in Vietnam does not require a person to have harmed society, only the government (or communist party). Thus, many of the executions in Vietnam, which are irregularly reported by the Western media, have been under the pretense of seemingly despicable crimes. The concern is that the Government of Vietnam employs the death penalty to eliminate its opponents. The so-called legal process leading up to death by firing squad instills little confidence otherwise.
Lately, some of the high-profile executions in Vietnam have been for drug smuggling. Drug smuggling is a vile activity with no defense. The trouble, though, is that authorities are exploiting the judicial system to make select individuals scapegoats. A regime that has the ability and resources to monitor the political activities of the people, squelch dissident, and prevent any kind of independent media, should not have the problems controlling the drug trade as Hanoi has had (and which have been routinely admitted by officials). How does a system with such a vast security network turn impotent when it comes to policing activities of a commercial nature? Might it be that behind the illicit economic activities are high ranking members of the party, their proteges and families?
Hanoi's draconian legal system has lately been used to cower foreign investors. Tran Trieu Quan, a Vietnamese-Canadian, was detained in March when he flew to Hanoi to inquire the whereabouts of a missing shipment for his import-export business. Authorities demanded $550,000 before even discussing the release of Mr. Quan. Such strong-arm tactics by government officials, experienced by Tran Trieu Quan and other foreign businessmen, symbolize how authorities have turned the legal system upside down to further their own political and economic interests. This total abuse of the legal system, whether for executions or kidnapping, is indicative of the state of the country.
The recent publicized executions in Vietnam tell a lot about the current rulers of Vietnam, and why people who cannot stomach injustice shall not tolerate this status quo. Vietnam has violent criminals like any other country, but the frequency of these executions raises two fundamental questions. At what point does a government need to take responsibility for a society that has gone awry, one that seems to lead so many people to commit wrong acts? Even more importantly, is it possible that innocent people in Vietnam are being given death sentences, by firing squad or a slow death in prison, by the ultimate violent criminals in the country-- those making up the unelected and repressive regime?
FVA Home Page