HÀ NỘI — Progress has been made to prevent crime and corruption but shortcomings remained, officials said at a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee (NASC) on Tuesday, which discussed performance during their term of office in 2016-2021.

The People’s Procuracy and People’s Court at all levels met criteria and requests of the NA’s resolutions, solved disputes, contributing to maintain social order and security for the country, they said.

According to Lê Minh Trí, Prosecutor General of the Supreme People's Procuracy, despite the fact that the number of crimes continued to rise, the sector has upheld its responsibility to fulfil all tasks entrusted to it by the National Assembly.

The Investigation Agency of the Supreme People’s Procuracy has promptly verified, prosecuted and investigated many cases of corruption in judicial activities which drew public interest.

It has strived to improve the quality of investigative officers and legal documents.

The number of cases dealt with by investigative police and the number of defendants rose by 28 per cent and 42 per cent compared with the previous term, respectively.

Legal proceedings have been launched in over 3,000 cases, an increase of 64 per cent.

However, there still existed some wrongful verdicts; the quality of appeals to administrative cases was low and the settlement of petitions had not reached the National Assembly's target, Trí said.

Regarding the performance of the People’s Court, Nguyễn Hòa Bình, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court of Vietnam, said the People's Courts at all levels had adopted solutions to improve the quality of criminal trials. The rate of solving these cases reached 99.5 per cent, exceeding the target of the National Assembly by 11.5 per cent.

The sector had overcome the limitation of prolonged cases. Most cases were brought to trial within the time limit by law. In particular, no cases of wrongful conviction had been detected during that time.

It is noteworthy that the number of assets recovered in corruption cases reached nearly VNĐ80 trillion (US$3.4 billion) which was appreciated by the Party, State and people.

Under the direction of the Central Steering Committee on anti-corruption, the sector put on trial 7,463 cases of corruption or violations of economic regulations and 14,540 defendants had been strictly dealt with.

The Court also applied measures to seize property or blockade accounts to recover tens of trillions of Vietnamese dong in accordance with State regulations.

However, he said, there were still some cases that had to be cancelled or corrected. — VNS