"At first, I thought that I could take my money back with the court judgement. But, I still faced with difficulty in having the judgement executed. So, is the court judgement any valuable?" said Mr Bui Truong Son from Phuc Hung Holdings.
Many prolonged sentences
The Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgements is one of the laws with huge institutional contributions that support the competitiveness of the economy. A fast, efficient and transparent process of civil judgement enforcement will help protect property of enterprises and guarantee contract enforcement, thus creating the confidence of the business community in production and business activities. Conversely, if the enforcement process is prolonged and the rate of successful judge enforcement is low, high costs will be enormous business risks or hindrance to the success of businesses.
At a recent seminar entitled “Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgements Viewpoint from Business” hosted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in Hanoi, Lawyer Tran Xuan Tien from Dong Doi Law Firm said the enforcement of civil judgements is not as effective as expected, time-consuming and costly for the State, individuals, businesses and distresses sometimes come from judgement enforcement officers. In practice, when court judgements are enforced, civil disputes are often so complicated that they need more time to deal with. Sometimes, the enforcement faces disagreement and opposition, resulting in the pending period of decades or even a lifetime. This causes distresses, exhaustion and loss of confidence in the legal system.
“For that reason, the enforcement of court judgements and decisions is not so easy in these cases. The ineffective enforcement erodes confidence of enterprises, forcing many to seek assistance from black society with huge costs to reclaim their interests,” he added. Without doubt, this affects social order and causes the sense of anxiety and insecurity of businesses. Many individuals and companies have been brought to court in the role of co-conspirators. The Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgements needs to be amended and supplemented to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the execution of civil judgements.
Lawyer Tien said this reality stems from various causes like insufficient legal regulations, public awareness, judgement enforcers at all levels, and judgement enforcement supervisors among others.
More clauses added
Currently, the Ministry of Justice is amending the Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgments in accordance with the law-making agenda of the National Assembly, the supreme lawmaking body. The issue of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to a Number of Articles of the Law on Enforcement of Civil Judgements aims to ensure that valid court verdicts and decisions shall be strictly implemented; enhance the quality and effectiveness of enforcement of civil judgements; reduce backlogs; better protect the legitimate rights and interests of judgement creditors, and more clearly define the roles and responsibilities of civil judgement enforcement agencies, courts, procuracies, People’s Committees, agencies, organisations and individuals involved in enforcement of civil rights. The draft law plans to amend and supplement 85 articles and clauses: Amending and supplementing 74 existing items, adding 10 new articles, and abolishing one clause.
Notably, the draft law amends and supplements regulations on measures that ensure and coerce the enforcement of civil judgements (Chapter IV). Accordingly, judgement creditors are allowed to take assets to offset judgement enforcement; executors make records on the agreement and issue decisions in recognition of the agreement of the persons concerned to create the basis for transfer of ownership and use of property.
The draft law also amends and adds assurance measures concerning property blockade at depositories, duration of account blockade from 5 to 15 working days, duration of temporary custody of property and papers of the persons concerned from 15 days to 30 days, duration for suspending registration, transfer of ownership, use and change of current status of property from 15 days to 45 days, and to 60 days in special cases.
In addition, the draft law also adds specific regulations that the persons concerned are entitled to request revaluation of property distrained, with the aim that property distrained is put up for auction at right value, avoid harming the persons concerned and reduce complaints and denunciations. At the same time, the new law supplements regulations on coercion of shared properties. Executors are responsible for notifying joint owners of their granted priority to purchase shared property distrained at the starting price of the auction to sell the property distrained. The priority duration for purchasing shared movable property distrained is one month and for unmovable property is three months starting from the date of notification of executors. After the priority period is over, if owners do not buy back their previously shared property, executors shall handle it as prescribed by laws.
Quynh Chi
Vietnamese
