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# Unstructured **Legal** Environment

Until 1989, most of the legal texts in Viet-Nam were in the form of decree, ordinance, decision, and circular all promulgated or issued by the executive branch (by the prime minister of a minister). These laws and regulations were made on an ad-hoc basis as the need arose, and often they conflicted with one another. In practice, administrative decisions dominated most areas of the legal framework. The National Assembly, strengthened by the 1992 Constitution, began integrating these texts into laws and enacted new statutes, particularly in basic laws, e.g., the 1992 Law on Organization of People's Courts (October 6, 1992).

Despite considerable progress in making new laws, Viet Nam's legal framework remains largely unstructured and informal. During the war years, the government ruled by decrees. But unlike the war years, there is currently a proliferation of laws, particularly regulatory laws. These laws came in avalanches and were replaced by others prepared with little care. As a result, an unstable and unpredictable legal environment was created. The latest example concerns land use rights where the controversial decree No.18, February 13, 1995 created considerable confusion as it attempts to abolish long term land use rights already acquired for business activities and replaces them with leases (see Section II). Overlapping of authority between legislative and executive branches and inconsistent standards set out by multiple levels of government are not uncommon. For example, in the area of real property rights, an administrative circular (Circular 297, October 2, 1991) added to the state property all houses whose owners are absent, including properties that have become state property as a result of various socialist reform campaigns (Art. 3). The circular also requires citizens who leave the country to be reunified with their families to surrender their houses for "state management." Under stricter rules of constitutionalism, this kind of regulation can be construed as encroachment on legislative power as the distribution of real properties between state and individuals and their disposition should normally be in the domain of lawmaking by legislature. More frequent are instances of overlapping regulations issued by different layers of the executive branch, e.g., between central government and provincial governments. For example, in the area of foreign investment, apart from a basic law requiring an investment project be assessed for approval purpose by the Central Evaluation Committee at the central government level, Ho Chi Minh City also issued a People's Committee decision (October 5, 1992) requiring the project to be first examined on the basis of the same criteria as the Central Evaluation Committee. The duplication of authorities resulted in uncertainty and increases in transaction costs.

Poor implementation of the law and weak enforcement of court orders are common in most areas of the law in part because of low efficiency and limited experience of the judiciary. For example, in the jurisdiction of Ho Chi Minh City with the largest number of lawsuits every year, for a variety of reasons including corruption, only less than half of all judgements get enforced. According to data from the Office of Court Decision Implementation of Ho-Chi-Minh City, out of a total of 30,551 court decisions rendered in 1994, only 11,335 or 37% were enforced. (In 1993, only about 30% of court decisions got