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International Conference on Comparative Law on the Topic of Protection of Human Rights in Hanoi

Published: October 1, 2014

Participants of the International Conference on Comparative Law on the Topic of Protection of Human Rights in Hanoi

Participants of the International Conference on Comparative Law on the Topic of Protection of Human Rights in Hanoi

For the fourth time in a row the IRZ and the Institute of Human Rights have organised a conference on the protection and enforcement of human rights. Some 50 participants from academic institutions, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People’s Prosecutor’s Office as well as from other judicial institutions attended the conference. Human rights as well as fundamental rights have been a particular focus in Vietnam since the reform of the Constitution with effect from 1 January 2014.The new Constitution does not extend these rights, but nevertheless the government has been regularly pointing out that fundamental rights were moved up from chapter 5 to chapter 2 of the Constitution with the intention to strengthen the respect of them.Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice announced that all laws were to be reviewed or adapted to ensure that they are in line with the Constitution.Moreover, reforms to restructure the courts (separation of the court districts from the administrative districts) and to reorganise the public prosecutor’s offices have been initiated.The German presenters were Renate Citron-Piorkowski, judge at the Administrative Court of Berlin; Prof Dr Birgit Daiber, Seoul National University School of Law, and Susanne Bunke from the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.They gave an overview of how the German Constitution came into being and has developed, of the obligation to respect fundamental rights, of the legal protection in case of violations of the Constitution, of the European Human Rights Charter as well as of similarities and differences of Vietnamese and German concepts of the Constitution.These topics were discussed with enthusiasm and in detail, whereby the different perspectives on fundamental and human rights were revealed.