Annotation

This paper lists selected sources of criminal procedure in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with examples and briefly describes some of their features. The main (but not the only) source is legal acts (in Vietnamese văn bản quy phạm pháp luật). These include the Constitution, laws, codes, circulars (in Vietnamese thông tư) of individual officials and agencies, resolutions of the Council of Judges of the Supreme People's Court (in Vietnamese nghị quyết Hội đồng Thẩm phán), and others that are ideological, guiding, or organizational in nature. Along with these, sources should include administrative documents (in Vietnamese văn bản hành chính), inter alia official letters (in Vietnamese công văn) from the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuracy, reviews of practice (in Vietnamese thông báo rút kinh nghiệm), as well as judicial practice itself (in Vietnamese án lệ), which is interpreted ambiguously by Vietnamese theorists. As for sources of international cooperation in the field of criminal proceedings, one may note the priority of ratified international treaties over domestic regulations, with the exception of the Constitution of the Republic, as well as the principle of reciprocity (in Vietnamese nguyên tắc có đi có lại) in the absence of bilateral international treaties.