C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HO CHI MINH CITY 000663

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM VM XB
SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS SPEED BUMPS ON
ROAD TO VIETNAM'S INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION

HO CHI MIN 00000663 001.2 OF 004


CLASSIFIED BY: Kenneth J. Fairfax, Consul General, U.S.
Consulate General Ho Chi Minh City, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: Holding the 2009 LawAsia Society conference, the
LawAsia Moot Competition for law students and the meeting of
Asian/Pacific Chief Justices concurrently in HCMC represented
both a significant step forward for Vietnam's legal profession
as well as a reminder of how far they still have to go. While
organizers initially took minor setbacks (such as a GVN demands
that speeches be modified and that one paper slated for
presentation to the LawAsia Society conference be dropped
entirely) in stride, by the closing of the event international
organizers and local sponsored were clearly under extreme
stress. Closing remarks at the award ceremony for the Moot
Competition were rewritten entirely just hours before the event
in a last-ditch effort to assuage irate CPV and MPS officials
who had taken exception to various aspects of the event.
Despite these drawbacks, Vietnamese lawyers and students
participating in the events were clearly elated at having the
opportunity to interact with international colleagues. Foreign
participants, including the Chief Justice of Australia's Supreme
Court, were very impressed with the quality of young Vietnamese
lawyers and students. END SUMMARY.



LAWASIA COMES TO HCMC

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2. (SBU) After more than four years of attempts and preparation,
LawAsia (the law association for Asia and the Pacific) held its
2009 annual conference in HCMC. Concurrent with the conference,
the association of Chief Justices of Asian and Pacific Supreme
Courts held their annual meeting in the city and LawAsia held
the finals of its annual Moot Competition for law students.
LawAsia President Glenn Ferguson (from Australia) oversaw the
conference while Raphael Tay (from Malaysia) served as the Chair
of the LawAsia Moot Competition organizing committee. Other

LawAsia officers from Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, New
Zealand and elsewhere also participated in the organizing. The
meeting of Chief Justices of Supreme Courts was the most private
of the three events and was organized by staff working for the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Malaysia. Their
counterparts were the Vietnam National University - HCMC School
of Law (VNU-HCMC School of Law) for the Moot Competition, the
Ministry of Justice and HCMC Bar Association for the LawAsia
Conference, and the Ministry of Justice for the meeting of Chief
Justices.




3. (C) As the leadership of LawAsia and the organizers of the
Moot Competition explained at lunch with ConGen Officers just
after their arrival in HCMC, bringing the three annual Asian law
events to HCMC had been a long-held dream of LawAsia's leaders
that they pursued as part of their commitment to promoting rule
of law and the professionalization of both lawyers and judges
throughout Asia. The participation of a member of Vietnam's
high court in a previous meeting, along with the very good
showing made by Vietnamese students in past Moot Competitions,
appeared to help the GVN accept the event.




4. (C) Organizers began to get a taste of complications to come
before the conference and competition began. The Moot
Competition organizers, for example, had made requests to
several Consulates General whose countries had teams
participating in the Moot Competition to co-host an informal
evening event for the students, judges and lawyers. After the
USA, Australia and Singapore had agreed, however, Vietnamese
counterparts informed LawAsia that it would be "too sensitive"
for the foreign consulates to host events. On the day the
LawAsia board arrived, they were greeted with the news from the
Ministry of Justice that one of the keynote papers to be
presented at the conference had to be dropped entirely. The
paper, by a LawAsia Board Member from Australia, had been on
balancing states' interests and personal privacy in the Internet
age and had advocated adoption by Asian nations of a document
similar to the European Charter on Internet Privacy. In
addition, LawAsia's Executive Secretary had been "invited" to
discuss changes to his opening address to students participating
in the Moot Competition. Despite these minor glitches, however,
the LawAsia board was clearly upbeat during their first day in
HCMC and focused much of their discussion on the opportunity the
upcoming events represented to help integrate Vietnam's legal
profession into the international community.

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5. (C) The spirits of the LawAsia group were further bolstered
when one of the leaders of HCMC Bar told them that they should
not worry too much about the Internet privacy paper being pulled
since he would call on the author during a discussion session
with a question that would, in effect, invite the author to
present his arguments from the floor. In a discussion with CG
after the conference, both the presenter and the Vietnamese
lawyer said that the exchange had gone very well. One of the
Vice Presidents of the HCMC Bar Association commented, however,
that MoJ officials were very unhappy with the topics raised
during open discussions at the LawAsia event but shrugged off
the reprimand he had received as nothing unusual. While he
expressed doubts that MoJ will agree to let LawAsia return to
Vietnam anytime soon, he added that it won't be Vietnam's turn
again for a number of years -- and who knows what could happen
by then.



Moot Not Mute

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6. (C) The Moot Competition wound up being the lighting rod that
attracted the most strikes. At first glance, the topic of the
2009 Moot Competition appears technical and arcane: a
multi-party dispute involving a treasure-hunting ocean salvage
company, a fictitious nation where a colonial-era ship wreck had
been found, the fictitious nation from which the gold and other
valuable artifacts had been looted over a century ago, and the
fictitious country whose flag the wrecked ship flew. In
practice, however, arguments presented and subsequent
questioning by judges frequently focused on fundamental
principles of law such as the right of the state versus the
rights of property owners, the sanctity of contracts and even
the proper separation of judiciary from the executive branch.
While LawAsia representatives had submitted all papers to be
presented at their conference to the Ministry of Justice in
advance, they had not submitted all of the student's initial
written arguments in the moot competition. As Moot Chair
Raphael Tay explained to CG, they were only student papers and
touched only upon a fictitious case so he never even thought to
present them for censorship review.




7. (C) As the competition moved from initial arguments to
questions and answers, the discussion became even more
sensitive. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Malaysia,
who had volunteered as one of the Moot Competition judges,
undoubtedly set off mental alarm bells when he asked the
students representing VNU-HCMC Law School what their arguments
in the case implied about the limits of states' power in private
property cases and the responsibility of states' to respect
their own laws and contracts. Other Moot Competition judges
asked questions that directly linked the fictitious case to the
independence of the judiciary, the value and legal weight of
precedence, and other topics. The result was an avalanche of
protests directed at the organizers and hosts of the Moot
competition. After being contacted by MoJ officials, VNU-HCMC
Law School Rector Mai Hong Quy lodged a complaint with LawAsia
ExecSec Tay, demanding to know why students' written arguments
had not been submitted in advance. As the competition continued
and the judges began their questioning, her complaints were
joined by additional ones directly from the Ministry of Justice,
the HCMC Communist Party and the Ministry of Public Security
(MPS). A few sessions of the competition were delayed by
frantic demands that contestants and judges stick narrowly to
the topic but eventually proceeded. The presence of two Chief
Justices (Malaysia and Australia) plus numerous other senior
judicial officials at the competition probably helped avert more
disruptions.




8. (C) Moot Competition Chair Raphael Tay told CG that as the
competition continued and complaints mounted, he had found
VNU-HCMC Rector Mai Hong Quy literally in tears due to the
direct threats she had received from the CPV and MPS, both of
whom had informed her that the poor judgment she displayed in
hosting the Moot Competition raised serious doubts about her
suitability as law school rector. Tay was approached by multiple

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officials who demanded that he intervene with Moot Competition
judges in order to convince them to stick narrowly to the topic
and avoid sensitive lines of questioning.



A SURREAL CLOSURE -- BUT LOTS OF SMILES

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9. (C) The Moot Competition award ceremony, which was broadcast
live on Vietnamese national television, reflected both the
strains the competition had caused as well as the friendships it
had helped form. Rector Mai Hong Quy's opening speech, which
she confided to CG she had finished rewriting only shortly
before the broadcast began, hailed the Moot Competition as "an
opportunity for Vietnam to demonstrate to the international
community the value of Ho Chi Minh thought as applied to
education, particularly Ho Chi Minh's emphasis on education
through practice focused on achieving national goals." The rest
of the speech continued along the same lines and generally
sounded more like a pronouncement from the CPV's ideology
department than from a well respected lawyer and academic.
(Comment: Mai Hong Quy is a long-time Consulate contact. Her
stated personal goal is to improve the quality of legal
education in Vietnam. In order to pursue this goal effectively,
she avoids unnecessary controversy while pursuing a pragmatic,
gradual program of expanding legal education into such areas as
international law and even human rights law. Her speech that
night was unlike anything we had heard from her before. End
Comment.)




10. (C) After having already rewritten his closing speech once
to avoid references to advancing the rule of law and other
"sensitive topics," Raphael Tay was also forced to completely
rewrite his remarks at the last minute. His final speech was an
extended (nationally televised) apology for the many problems
the Moot Competition had encountered. He took all of the blame
on himself, stating that Mai Hong Quy and others had done
everything correctly and had even attempted to help him avoid
his many errors. He added that if he could, he would do
anything if only to take back the tears that had been shed.




11. (SBU) Against that somber background, the actual awards
ceremony was huge success. The VNU-HCMC Law School team won one
of the major awards of the night and was given a second, special
award for the team that had overcome the greatest obstacles in
order to successfully compete in the Moot. While the VNU-Hanoi
Law School team did not win any awards, the students were still
clearly ecstatic to be taking part in an international
competition. Even the legion of law and English students from
HCMC who served as volunteers during the competition were giddy
with the excitement of making so many new friends from across
Asia and the Pacific. (FYI: The top team award went to a
Malaysian team and the top individual award to an Aussie. The
sole American team, from LA, did not garner any awards.)




12. (C) In conversations with international students and coaches
after the competition, it appeared that the behind-the-scenes
drama had made little impression on them. Delays are normal and
can occur for many reasons, so the ones caused by concern over
presentations and questions did not appear to strike most
participants as anything unusual. With only a few exceptions,
the students appeared unaware of -- and unconcerned with -- the
reasons for the delays. International professors and coaches
were uniformly complementary of the level of preparation and
poise of the Vietnamese law students; several expressed surprise
that students of such caliber were students at essentially
unknown law schools. While various participants admitted that
they were rather surprised that the award ceremony for an
academic legal competition included no less than three
elaborately choreographed dance routines and two fashion shows,
no one CG spoke with complained about the addition of a bit of
Las Vegas style glitz to what is usually a rather sedate legal
awards event.



CHIEF JUSTICES MEETING PUBLICIZED BUT PRIVATE

HO CHI MIN 00000663 004.2 OF 004



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13. (C) Of the three legal events that took place simultaneously
in HCMC, the meeting of Chief Justices of Asian and Pacific
Supreme Courts was the highest level and least public. Justices
from roughly a dozen countries met in the Reunification Palace
(former Presidential Palace) in HCMC. Despite huge banners
welcoming them and a brief televised segment of Vietnamese
leaders greeting the justices, the entire meeting took place in
complete privacy. Even lunches and dinners were closed. The few
justices who did venture out to volunteer as judges in the Moot
Competition would only say that meeting was open and productive
with no topics off limits but that it was also completely
private.



COMMENT

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14. (C) Despite the drama that surrounded the LawAsia Conference
and the Moot Competition, having those two events take place in
Vietnam for the first time represents a concrete step forward in
the slow process of improving rule of law in Vietnam as well as
moving the country toward accepting international legal norms.
The drama is simply a reflection of the fact that the step
forward was rather larger than the CPV and MPS are comfortable
with. Despite the angst of their government, Vietnamese lawyers
and law students were very proud to serve as hosts and worked
hard to earn the respect of their international colleagues.
While CPV sensitivities may preclude a repetition of an event of
this type for some time to come, the fact remains that many
Vietnamese lawyers and students who have never had the
opportunity to travel or study abroad have now had a strong
taste of how law is practiced outside of Vietnam -- and they
clearly like what they tasted.




15. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassy Hanoi.
FAIRFAX