Customs: Constantly improve the effectiveness of handling administrative violations and proceedings at the Court

	Propose to financially settle nearly 1,000 billion VND in January
	No refund import tax for materials that are handled for reprocessing
	Handle 10,616 cases of smuggling and violation in Customs field

The Trial of timber smuggling of Ngoc Hung Company Limited in August 2018. Photo: Ngoc Linh

Many shortcomings and inadequacies

According to the General Department of Customs, in 2018, the handling of administrative violations and participation in administrative proceedings at the Court continues to be comprehensively implemented by units in the whole sector. Due to identifying the importance of this work, the detection of violations, the record making and handling of cases were basically implemented by the units in a timely and effective manner, in accordance with procedures and law on competence, penalties and legal bases in administrative decisions in a complete and strict manner.

In particular, the units have taken the initiative in disseminating legal documents to their civil officials, organizing professional training courses to improve the skills of administrative sanctions, and participation in administrative proceedings at the Court, and at the same time, monitoring and grasping arising problems to promptly report to competent authorities for guidance. Thereby, helping the units in the sector to strictly and uniformly implement the provisions of the law on sanctioning administrative violations in the field of customs.

However, according to the representative of the Legal Department under the General Department of Customs, in addition to the achievements, the sanction of administrative violations and proceedings at the Court of the Sector still has some shortcomings and inadequacies.

They are, the minutes of administrative violations do not detail the contents of violations, situation of violation cases, illegal declarations, or do not describe exactly acts of violation, and do not conclude acts of violations in a specific manner. Thus leading to the wrong determination of violation acts, so the decision on sanction is unconvincing.

The units have not yet made a written record of administrative violations at the time of determining acts of administrative violations in a timely fashion. Also, the synthesis of reports have not fully shown the contents of the violation case, often only summarized the case and have not based on the overall records to analyze acts of violations as a basis for proposing sanctions. The content of reports are not clear and logical in determining violations and the legal basis for sanctioning administrative violations, do not consider aggravating or mitigating circumstances, or only mentions aggravating or mitigating circumstances, and have not clarified the details of the violation and have not determined the value of material evidences, etc., to serve as a basis for proposing sanctions for the case.

Also according to the representative of the Legal Department, there is still a situation that the sanctioning decision has not been in compliance with the sanctioning regime and the penalties; does not list solutions for infringing organizations and individuals to implement. The issued decision is not in accordance with the prescribed competence, there is no document to authorize the deputy to issue the sanctioning decision.

Some experienced customs officers said that the most important thing is that for the implementation of tasks, they must be in line with procedures and provisions right from the first stage. Because administrative cases relates to regulations of many sectors and fields, only a small mistake can become "dead spots" in the Administrative Court. Therefore, the implementation in accordance with procedures and provisions is not easy and must be proceeded with care.

Improving responsibility and efficiency

In order to improve the responsibility and efficiency in handling administrative violations, participation in administrative proceedings at the Court, and overcome shortcomings and inadequacies, the General Department of Customs requests the units to strictly follow legal provisions on sanctioning administrative violations and administrative proceedings at the Court.

Continuing dissemination of legal documents to civil officials in the units, organize professional training to improve the skills for administrative handling and participation in administrative proceedings at Court. Formulating and organizing the implementation of the inspection plan of their units on the enforcement of law on handling administrative violations. Ensuring facilities and developing a contingent of professional and qualified officials in handling administrative violations and proceedings in the Court.

In particular, the General Department of Customs requires the units where violations arise, to take charge of summarizing the case settlement, analysing, evaluating and drawing lessons for their units. Promptly reporting to the General Department as soon as the case arises.

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According to statistics, in 2018, 28/35 Customs Departments of provinces and cities actively developed and implemented internal inspection plans at their units on sanctions of administrative violations. Accordingly, in 2018, the whole sector discovered and handled 16,633 cases. The number of administrative cases that the Customs agency participated in as a defendant (the total number of old and newly arising administrative cases) was 29 cases. In which, the number of administrative cases from 2017 into 2018, was 17 cases and in 2018, the whole sector had 12 new cases. As a result, there was 1 case of appellate review in 2018 (rejecting all petitions; 5 cases of successful reconciliation, so the petitioner withdrew the application. Therefore, so far, 23 cases are being followed and further processed, of which 8 cases have taken to the first instance trial (rejecting all petitions).