President Nguyen Minh Triet on Dec. 29 called on the judiciary to improve their performance in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the nation's judicial reform.

Triet, who made the remarks at a meeting of the Central Judicial Reform steering committee in Hanoi , said education and training are key factors in the reform. The President asked for increased vocational training to be provided to grassroots judicial officers to help improve the quality of their judgements. He also called on the sector to strengthen the supervision and inspection on their performance.

According to the Procuracy Department, the numbers of civil disputes increase from 10,000 to 15,000 a year. Consequently, the People's Procuracy is working with the courts to resolve the backlog in cases. In recent years, the People's Procuracy has worked closely with investigating agencies and courts at all levels to prosecute and try major cases.

The meeting, under the chairmanship of Triet, reviewed the implementation of judicial reforms in recent years and discussed the establishment of people's courts of first instance and People's procuracies at an inter-provincial level. The establishment of those bodies will be the core of next year's judicial reform activities.

The President praised the progress made based on the guidance of the Party Politburo's Resolution on judicial reforms until 2020. Triet highly spoke of the improvement in the competence of provincial courts. The awareness of relevant sectors and bodies on the Resolution has been boosted along with the improvement in the judicial training and education, said Triet.

In pointing out the drawbacks and challenges in carrying out the reforms, the President said the public remains concerned about the need for transparency in the performance of judicial officials who should focus on minimising the number of unjust verdicts.

Triet agreed with the step-by-step plan on establishing the people's courts of the first instance and inter-provincial People's procuracies. The courts and procuracies should be quickly established in localities which have qualified officials and improved facilities, said Triet. He also recommended that local judicial authorities that are lagging on the implementation of the reforms should speed up their work.

The President proposed to judicial bodies to draft detailed action plans to effectively implement the reforms and insert step-to-step plans to establish people's courts of the first instance and People's procuracies into their agendas for the new year./.