Vietnam Court System: Key Differences from Common Law Jurisdictions

Vietnam's legal system is fundamentally a civil-law system, with French-colonial and Soviet-era influences. Statutes — codes and laws enacted by the National Assembly — are the primary source of law. Decrees from the government, circulars from ministries, and resolutions from the Supreme People's Court provide implementing detail. The court's role is to apply the codes; it does not make law in the common-law sense.

Precedent is not formally binding. Vietnam introduced a 'precedent' (án lệ) system in 2016: the Supreme People's Court selects and publishes specific decisions as binding precedents. As of early 2026, several dozen precedents have been published. They are influential — but they sit alongside, not above, the statutory text. A Vietnamese judge faced with a clear statute and an inconsistent precedent will follow the statute.

The practical implication for foreign-firm teams: the case-strategy starting point is the relevant code or law, not analogous case authority. Time spent searching for 'cases on point' yields less than time spent on precise statutory analysis. The Civil Code 2015, the Civil Procedure Code 2015, the Commercial Law 2005, the Law on Investment 2020, the Labour Code 2019, the Law on Enterprises 2020, and sector-specific laws are the workhorse texts; their structure and internal cross-references reward careful reading.

Doctrine — academic commentary — plays a meaningful role in Vietnamese practice, especially on novel questions. Senior practitioners and academics produce commentary that judges read and sometimes follow. This is closer to the French and German models than to the common-law treatment of academic writing.

Vietnamese courts are organised in a four-tier hierarchy under the Law on Organisation of People's Courts.

District People's Courts are the trial courts of first instance for most ordinary civil, commercial, criminal, and family matters. They sit in each of Vietnam's roughly 700 districts. For purely domestic matters of moderate value, the District People's Court is the entry point.

Provincial People's Courts are first-instance courts for more significant matters — including all matters with a foreign element (foreign party, foreign property, cross-border element). They are also the appellate courts for District People's Court decisions. There are 63 Provincial People's Courts (one per province and centrally administered city). For foreign-firm clients, the Provincial People's Court is almost always the relevant trial court.

High People's Courts are appellate and cassation courts. There are three: in Hanoi (covering northern Vietnam), Da Nang (central Vietnam), and Ho Chi Minh City (southern Vietnam). They hear appeals from Provincial People's Courts and exercise cassation jurisdiction over District- and Provincial-court decisions.

The Supreme People's Court sits in Hanoi. It exercises cassation and reopening jurisdiction over the High People's Courts and selects precedents. It does not hear ordinary appeals.

There is no separate commercial court, no separate administrative court above the trial level (administrative cases are heard by general courts following specific procedure), and no constitutional court (constitutional review is exercised by the National Assembly's Standing Committee, not by the judiciary).

There is no jury in Vietnamese civil or criminal proceedings. The decision-maker is a panel of professional judges and lay assessors.

First-instance panel composition (typical): one professional judge plus two lay assessors (Hội thẩm nhân dân). Lay assessors are non-lawyer citizens nominated through local political channels and elected for a fixed term. They sit alongside the judge with formally equal voting rights.

In practice, the professional judge dominates the legal analysis; lay assessors typically defer on questions of law but contribute on factual and equitable judgment. For complex commercial or cross-border matters, the lay-assessor influence on outcome is usually modest. For criminal and family matters, it can be more material.

Appellate panel composition: typically three professional judges, no lay assessors. Cassation panel composition: three or more professional judges; for major cases at the Supreme People's Court, an enlarged council can sit.

The practical implication for foreign-firm teams: the audience for trial advocacy is a sophisticated legal panel that has read the case file in advance. Common-law-style live advocacy aimed at persuading non-lawyers has limited application. Vietnamese hearings reward focused, written-evidence-grounded argument over rhetorical performance.

Vietnamese civil procedure is fundamentally inquisitorial rather than adversarial. The judge directs the proceeding, identifies the issues, examines witnesses, and orders the production of evidence. Counsel for the parties make submissions, propose evidence, and cross-examine — but they do so within a frame controlled by the bench.

Written evidence dominates. The case file (hồ sơ vụ án) is the central artefact: pleadings, documentary evidence, expert reports, witness statements, transcripts of court-ordered investigations. The case file is built up over the pre-hearing phase and forms the basis for the hearing. Parties file their evidence on a schedule set by the court; late evidence can be excluded.

Witnesses. Witnesses can be heard, but witness testimony plays a smaller role than in common-law systems. There is no broad right to compel third-party witnesses to attend depositions; witness statements are typically taken by counsel or by court-appointed officers. Cross-examination at hearing exists but is often perfunctory by common-law standards — the judge has typically reviewed the witness's prior statement and uses the hearing to clarify rather than to test credibility from scratch.

Expert evidence. Court-appointed experts (giám định) are central in technical matters: forensic accounting, valuation, signature authentication, real-property appraisal, medical assessment. The court appoints; the parties can propose experts but the court selects. Party-appointed experts can submit reports, but court-appointed expert opinions carry more weight.

Burden of proof. Article 91 of the CPC places the burden on the party making the assertion. The standard is broadly equivalent to the common-law balance of probabilities, though Vietnamese courts express the standard differently and apply it within the inquisitorial frame.

There is no broad pre-trial discovery on the common-law model. Parties are not entitled to compel each other to produce documents, answer interrogatories, or sit for depositions in advance of trial. This is the single most consequential procedural difference for foreign-firm teams accustomed to US-style discovery.

What exists instead is court-ordered evidence collection: under Article 97 of the CPC, a party can apply to the court to order specific evidence-collection measures — production of identified documents, inspection of identified places or items, witness summons, expert appointment. The court grants the application where the evidence is material and the applicant has been unable to obtain it directly. The grants are typically narrower than common-law discovery — closer to a targeted production request than to broad relevance-based discovery.

Practical implications for case strategy:

First, evidence preservation matters enormously. Documents that are not in your possession at the start of the case may be impossible to obtain later. Foreign-firm teams managing Vietnamese matters should focus pre-litigation evidence collection through their local counsel — interviews, document gathering from cooperative sources, expert preliminary review — before filing.

Second, the case file builds incrementally rather than emerging from a discovery phase. Counsel files documents as they are obtained; the court orders the production of additional documents on request. Plan for a longer pre-hearing phase than common-law instinct suggests.

Third, the absence of depositions changes witness preparation. Vietnamese practice does not include common-law-style witness preparation sessions; witness statements are taken in writing, often through counsel, and tend to be more concise than common-law affidavits. Witnesses may be examined at hearing, but the hearing is typically not the first time their evidence is heard.

The People's Procuracy (Viện Kiểm sát Nhân dân) is a separate constitutional organ that supervises the legality of judicial proceedings. In criminal cases the procuracy is the prosecutor. In civil cases — which is the unfamiliar bit for common-law lawyers — the procuracy plays a supervisory role under Article 21 and following articles of the CPC.

What the procuracy does in civil cases: attends hearings (a procurator is present at most first-instance and appellate hearings); reviews the procedural record for compliance with the CPC; expresses an opinion on the procedural legality of the proceeding and on the application of law; protests judgments it considers unlawful, triggering cassation review.

What the procuracy does not do: it is not a party. It does not advocate for either side on the merits. It does not present substantive evidence on the merits. Its role is supervisory, not adversarial.

Practical implications: the procurator's opinion at hearing is influential. A clear procuracy view that a judgment should go a particular way often predicts the outcome — though not always. Counsel should treat the procurator as a relevant audience: address procedural-legality concerns clearly, ensure the case file is properly assembled, and avoid procedural irregularities that the procuracy will flag.

The procuracy's protest power is a meaningful post-judgment route: a procuracy protest can trigger cassation review even where the parties themselves have not appealed. For foreign-firm clients on the receiving end of an adverse judgment, exploring whether procuracy concerns might support a protest is sometimes a productive avenue.

Vietnamese post-judgment review operates on two tracks.

Appeal (phúc thẩm). The ordinary first-line review, available as of right within 15 days of judgment for parties present at hearing, with extensions for parties abroad. Appeal proceeds to the next court up the hierarchy: Provincial People's Court for appeals from District People's Court decisions; High People's Court for appeals from Provincial People's Court decisions. The appellate court conducts a fresh review of both fact and law — closer to a French appel than to a common-law appeal — though in practice the appellate court relies heavily on the first-instance case file.

Cassation (giám đốc thẩm) and reopening (tái thẩm). Cassation review is an extraordinary remedy — the case is reviewed for serious legal errors after the appeal route has been exhausted (or the appeal time has expired). It can be initiated only by senior judicial or procuracy officials (the Chief Justice or Vice Chief Justices of the High People's Court or the Supreme People's Court, the Chief Procurator of the corresponding procuracy), not by the parties directly. Parties can petition for cassation, but the petition is granted at official discretion. Cassation looks at legal error, not factual re-evaluation. Reopening is even narrower — reserved for cases where new facts emerge that could not have been known earlier.

Time limits. Appeal: 15 days for present parties, extended for parties abroad. Cassation: typically three years from the date the judgment becomes effective. Plan accordingly.

Practical implications: the appeal is the meaningful second look. Parties should treat the first-instance hearing as preparation for likely appeal. Cassation is a real but narrow remedy — viable for genuine legal errors of significance but not a routine continuation of the dispute. Foreign-firm teams should not assume the right to multiple rounds of full re-litigation that some common-law systems permit.