Deputy Director General of Viet Nam Social Security Chu Manh Sinh made the order when he chaired a training conference on monitoring the law enforcement situation on handling administrative violations, recommending prosecution and judicial appraisal in the fields of social, health and unemployment insurance on October 18.

 Participants at the conference

The conference was held in both online and offline format, connecting the Viet Nam Social Security headquarters and its offices in 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

The conference aims to equip the necessary knowledge and professional skills for civil servants and public employees, who are doing legal work, monitoring law enforcement on handling administrative violations, and judicial examiners under the Viet Nam Social Security. Thereby, improving the capacity, roles and responsibilities of the civil servants, public employees and judicial examiners of the insurance sector.

Sinh also requested the agency’s Legal Department to answer questions relating to difficulties in the implementation of legal tasks for the offices in 63 provinces and cities.

For major problems that were beyond the authority of Viet Nam Social Security to resolve, the legal department was ordered to report so that the agency would propose competent agencies to handle it, he said.

He required participants at the conference to report related difficulties and problems so that all participants could discuss the matters and find suitable solutions.

Previously, speaking at the opening of the conference, he said legal work played a key role in helping management and direction activities relating to social insurance in ministries, sectors and localities.

 Deputy Director General of Viet Nam Social Security Chu Manh Sinh chairs the conference

For the social insurance sector, the legal work also played a very important role in advising and helping the General Director to manage the sector's activities by law. The legal work was closely associated with the professional activities of all units to ensure that the sector's activities comply with the law, he said.

The quality of the legal work had been increasingly improved in recent years, promptly advising and consulting on issues relating to legality not only for professional units but also for social security offices in provinces and cities, he said.

At the local level, the legal work had also been paid more attention and gradually promoted its role and achieved remarkable results, he said.

Recently, the legal work has been supplemented with many important tasks, such as helping the General Director to supervise the enforcement of laws on administrative violations, acting as the focal point to receive and advise on the assignment of organisations and individuals to perform judicial appraisal in the fields of social, health and unemployment insurance; acting as the focal point to monitor and guide the implementation of prosecuting illegal acts according to Article 214, Article 215, Article 216 of the Penal Code, he said.

Nguyen Thi Anh Tho, Acting director of the Legal Department under Viet Nam Social Security, at the conference

These tasks, which are closely associated with the activities of social security offices in provinces and cities, had been guided by Viet Nam Social Security throughout documents such as decision No 307/QD-BHXH dated March 2021 on recognising the list of judicial experts on specific cases, organising judicial expertise in the fields of social, health and unemployment insurance; Decision No 705/QD-BHXH dated May 19, 2023, on recognising and derecognising judicial experts on specific cases, organising judicial expertise in the fields of social, health and unemployment insurance; official dispatch No 239/BHXH-PC guiding the receipt and processing of information; preparing and sending dossiers asking prosecution.

However, in recent times, although officers carrying out legal work in the insurance sector had raised their sense of responsibility in performing tasks, this work still had many problems in sanctioning administrative violations of laws on social, health and unemployment insurance, he said.

Accordingly, as of August 2023, the sector sent 378 dossiers asking prosecution for violators under Article 216, however, there have not been any cases brought to trial because the police determined there were not enough grounds for prosecution, he said.

Moreover, the organisational structure and human resources performing the legal work must follow the general policy of downsizing, he said.

At the local level, there were no specialised officers to carry out legal work, all officers were assigned many tasks at the same time. Legal tasks were assigned to many functional departments, so they are scattered and have no common focal points, making professional guidance and direction difficult, he added.