Communist Review - The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has brought a plethora of opportunities and challenges to mankind in general and Viet Nam in particular. The impacts of the revolution have also been felt in the judicial domain, offering fresh opportunities, requirements and challenges. Thus, judicial reform ahead entails proper planning with appropriate road map for implementation.

     Overview of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution with emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), big data (Big Data), robotics, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, nanotechnology, automation, 3D printing technology, etc. is promised to bring many opportunities and challenges to mankind. According to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), “We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before” (1).

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is exerting a dramatic impact on every country, government, business and individual globally, ushering in a new era of investment, productivity and living standards based on human’s innovation, profoundly affecting the way in which the political, social and economic life of countries in the world is organized and operated. Viet Nam is one of the countries that are offered great opportunities to apply the achievements of the Industry 4.0 in order to accelerate the process of industrialization and modernization, to narrow the gap with developed countries and to improve people's living standards. In addition to the opportunities, the revolution also poses challenges to Viet Nam's development course, notably the risk of lagging behind in terms of science and technology; the redundancy of low-skilled workers disrupting the labor market structure; the potential rise in legal violations including high-tech crimes, privacy invasion and other acts adverse to political security, social order and safety, and the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals.

Over the past time, the Party and the State have been directing sectors and agencies of all levels to promote the application and development of science, technology, and innovation; to study and improve the capacity to fully grasp and actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Particularly, the Politburo issued Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW dated September 27, 2019 of on some undertakings and policies to actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with a vision towards 2025 when the digital economy is expected to account for about 20% of GDP and the digital transformation goals are expected to be achieved across the Party’s and the State’s agencies, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, and other socio-political organizations. By 2030, the digital economy is expected to account for about 30% of GDP and labor productivity is expected to increase by 7.5%/year on average. Viet Nam is hoped to maintain its rank among 40 leading countries in the world in the WIPO's Global Innovation (GII). By 2045, the country is projected to become one of the leading centers of manufacturing, smart service, startup and innovation in Asia, which has high labor productivity and is capable of mastering and applying modern technologies to all fields of socio-economy, environment, national defense and security. In addition, the Prime Minister signed Directive No. 16/CT-TTg dated May 4, 2017 on enhancing the capacity to access the 4th Industrial Revolution and rectified a scheme on promoting the sharing economy model. On this legal basis, ministries, sectors and localities have been devising and implementing a number of policies to promote the development of the information technology, electronics and telecommunications industry with its infrastructure being built synchronously. However, Viet Nam's participation in the revolution is still partial; meanwhile, institutional issues and ones regarding policies, structure and quality of human resources and limited science and technology capacity remain major obstacles. Therefore, in order to take advantage of the opportunities brought by Industry 4.0 and effectively manage and handle the challenges, the synchronous participation of the people, businesses, the entire political system, and agencies in the state apparatus, including institutions in the judiciary domain is of extreme necessity.

    Opportunities and challenges posed to Viet Nam’s judiciary in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The development of various technologies such as blockchain, AI, big data, robotics, IoT, and cloud computing with its diverse applications has contributed to improving the efficiency of law enforcement. Accordingly, these technologies can be applied for laws dissemination, inspection, violation detection and handling, and law enforcement monitoring, thus timely preventing, detecting and handling legal violations in state management, stopping any acts of flouting laws that cause public outrage. The application of such technologies also facilitates the connection between judicial bodies, organizations and the citizens. The system of courts, procuracies, civil judgment enforcement bodies and judicial support bodies can make use of new technologies to modernize settlement procedure, from reporting crimes, handling to publicizing information related to the settlement of crime cases. This eventually helps to improve work efficiency and increase the people and businesses' access to justice.

The application of AI in experimental and simulation investigations helps investigative bodies to collect and process information and evidence more effectively. Online trials can be put into consideration for future use. Judge-assisting applications can also be applied to evaluate evidence, and suggest options for settling cases based on information gathered and processed by AI or using in-court automatic interpretation. Technological applications can be extended to the incarceration and rehabilitation of prisoners. It is possible to monitor and track prisoners with the support of new machines and equipment.

In addition to the benefits offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there are several emerging challenges as follows:

Firstly, as digital economy is built and develops rapidly, it will make up an increasingly important part of the national economy. Digital technology is applied in industry, agriculture and services, giving rise to more and more new and even transnational business models and services, changing the way businesses make contracts and commercial transactions. As a result, e-commerce has crossed national borders and incurs numerous potential legal risks, which need to be identified and regulated by law. A myriad of new business methods have come into being, especially sharing economic models, new digital financial platforms, and crypto-assets that are yet regulated by any legal framework, causing difficulties and barriers to start-up, innovation and business activities as well as to state management. In such context, any disputes or violations will be brought to the prosecuting bodies, especially to the courts in order to be settled.

Secondly, taking advantage of advances in technology and borderless networks, hostile forces are increasingly spreading distorted information with an aim to cause uncertainty amongst the public and incite riots on the Internet. This has a significant impact on the political stance of the masses. Worryingly, on the pretext of the people's outrages over economic and social issues, such as environmental pollution, land confiscation, or toll collection at BOT toll booths, reactionary forces have thoroughly used cyberspace to incite mass gatherings, demonstrations, and cause social disorder, some of which are of great seriosity. In addition, hacking and illegally infiltrating organizations and businesses’ database and websites to steal data and extort money tend to increase. Viet Nam is amongst the countries that are most exposed to hacking risks. Vietnamese internet users frequently face up with malicious codes, large-scale high-intensity cyber-attacks that are increasingly sophisticated and dangerous. With the advancement of technology, viruses and spywares are sophisticatedly encrypted and spread via email, malicious websites, online forums, social networks, smartphone applications so as to infiltrate, steal personal data, and destroy or control computer systems ⁽²⁾. Therefore, it is bestial that institutions in the judiciary, especially those are responsible for investigating and handling violations should be equipped with sufficient capacity to promptly detect and strictly handle new violations.

Thirdly, the use of new technologies for illegal activities may potentially undermine social order and safety, which prompts persistent reform in judicial domain. For example, a number of multi-level marketing businesses design applications to lend money for fraud and appropriation of property in many localities across the country, especially in remote areas where people are humbly educated and especially tempted by "get-rich-quick mentality." Once greed evokes, criminals may attract thousands of customers to invest in return for huge profits and commissions which are promised to be far greater than the initial investments. Also, some criminals commit fraud under the veneer of charity, humanitarian, hunger eradication and poverty alleviation. In addition, potential fraudulent activities carried out in the form of virtual cryptocurrency trade, illegal gold exchange, and capital mobilization are very complicated. Various cases, discovered in a short time, caused hundreds of billions dong in damage. In addition, there are other forms of law violation such as selling fake money, fake degrees, and poor quality goods of unknown origin, appropriating corporate email accounts, changing beneficiary information to fraudulently appropriate money from benefactors. Criminal gangs also collude with one another to form online crime network with tens of thousands of local and foreign members, each responsible for a specific duty: stealing, buying, selling, exchanging, using credit card information to buy and sell high-value goods or make false or illegal transactions. There has been a rise in the quantity of foreigners entering Viet Nam, using fake credit cards, and allying with Vietnamese counterparts to make false payments and commit fraud and illegal appropriation of property. A considerable number of criminals even use a variety of devices concurrently to make fake credit cards to withdraw money. Organized Internet gambling has grown in scale, forming many illegal gambling rings netted millions of US dollars per day; the amount of money transferred abroad is up to trillions of VNDs. To deal with and avoid being detected by the authorized forces, gamblers often place servers outside Viet Nam, lease broadband internet, and set up virtual private networks (VPNs) complexly encrypted, set up thousands of websites for local and foreign gamblers to indulge in betting with different domain names and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. When these gambling platforms are raided and blocked by the police, new ones emerge. That spams, phishing and adverts are being spread with deceptive content is causing increasing irritation to users.

Therefore, in order to gather appropriate data and put forward solutions to these unprecedented problems, it is necessary to foster the work of research, identification, forecast, consultation and to propose amendments to and perfect current legal documents, meeting the requirements of crime prevention and combat in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Fourthly, the ubiquity of smart devices and the non-stop sharing platforms puts activities of state agencies in general and judicial activities in particular under close surveillance. As a consequence, criminal investigation, prosecution, trial and civil settlement of administrative cases need to be carried out accurately and lawfully. Amidst the rise of complex incidents, any errors may undermine the prestige of judicial bodies and erode the people’s trust in justice in general.

Fifthly, Industry 4.0 is closely associated with the world's new scientific achievements and advances which requires enormous capacity of science and technology to grasp and master. Past lessons have shown that the training for cadres working in the field of construction and law enforcement in Viet Nam failed to keep up with the global technological development and satisfy the requirement of applying technology to work, leading to uneven efficiency in the application of technological advances.

     Orientations on promoting judicial reform in Viet Nam in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Resolution No. 49-NQ/TW issued by the Politburo on June 2, 2005 "On the strategy of judicial reform until 2020" clearly defined the objective of judicial reform: “Building an ethical, healthy, strong, democratic, strict, fair and justice- protecting judiciary, as well as ensuring that the judiciary will be modernized on a step-by-step basis to serve the Socialist Fatherland of Viet Nam and its people and that judicial activities, among which adjudication plays a key role, will be highly efficient and effective.” The resolution indicated five Party guidelines, four orientations and eight tasks of judicial reform. After 15 years of implementation, it can be said that judicial reform in Viet Nam has achieved important results, contributing to the development and protection of the country, building the socialist rule-of-law state of the people, by the people and for the people. However, in the context of the Industry 4.0, in order to continue to accelerate judicial reform in accordance with the guidelines of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV), and to improve the efficiency of judicial activities, it is vital important to be imbued with and thoroughly implement the following solutions:

Firstly, grasping the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and laws on solutions to proactively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially the goals and tasks set out in the Resolution of the 12^th National Party Congress and hereafter that of 13^th National Party Congress, Resolution 52-NQ/TW dated September 27, 2019 by the Politburo, “on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, Directive No. 16/CT-TTg dated May 4, 2017 “on strengthening capacity to respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, Party committees of judicial bodies are required to design and implement action plans and programs tailor-made to suit specific conditions of each body. These programs and plans need to closely follow the Party guidelines on judicial reform while ensuring the goal of actively participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as set out in the Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW of the Politburo.

Secondly, continuing to perfect institutions to facilitate active participation in the Industry 4.0 and the process of national digital transformation and digitalization in judicial activities. Judicial reform in the new context is required to ensure quick and effective settlement of newly arising disputes. It is necessary to detect and fully identify illegal acts, new crimes or new tricks employed by criminals in the context of the Industry 4.0. In addition, it is essential to study and continue to perfect administrative and criminal laws by amending and supplementing new contents on the handling of law violations using high technology in cyberspace, especially the invasion of people’s privacy, freedom and democracy including security breaches involving messages, contact details, telegram, and money laundering, etc.

Conducting an extensive review of and perfect judicial laws to ensure compatibility with the development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as perfecting standards on evidence and e-evidence collecting; studying and applying online dispute solving models, online court; applying AI to investigation activities; designing software specializing in detention and detainment surveillance; applying blockchain technology in judicial activities (civil status, notarization, authentication, judicial documents, etc.); promoting the application of big data in investigation, prosecution and trial activities in order to improve court’s efficiency and ensure justice.

Thirdly, continuing to build a contingent of well trained, highly qualified, competent and professional judicial cadres in the new context. Paying attention to building a team of leading experts in legal and judicial domain, including legal staff and judicial support staff in order to meet the new requirements set out by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Continuing to implement and basically complete the overall Scheme “on building Hanoi Law University and Ho Chi Minh City Law University into key educational institutions for training law officers”, according to Decision No. 549/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister on April 4, 2013. These are the key tasks mapped out in the Resolution No. 49-NQ/TW aiming to build a well-qualified and professional judicial staff with strong political will power. Enhancing the quality of training, comprehensively reviewing and renovating Bachelor of Laws and judicial-titles training programs in all educational institutions in the direction of developing open-mindedness, creative thinking, and adaptability to fast-changing technology. Regularly providing education and training for judicial cadres and judicial support cadres on knowledge and skills to solve possible problems arising in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Fourthly, studying, devising and perfecting relevant policies as well as setting out roadmaps to promote digitalization in judicial bodies, focusing on consistency, interconnection and consensus across the court system. Increasing investment in technological infrastructure in the system in order to renovate judicial procedures, shorten settlement time and improve efficiency. Besides, modern equipment should be invested in criminal investigation and judgment enforcement. Accelerating the application of modern technologies of the Industry 4.0 in judicial organization, operation and state management in judicial support activities.

Fifthly, strengthening coordination between sectors and agencies in the prevention and control of cross-border and high-tech crimes, especially focusing on grasping the situation, reviewing and detecting shortcomings in state management in trade, investment, finance and banking. Increasing investment in facilities and tools in support of judicial bodies, especially investigation and inspection agencies.

Sixthly, promoting international cooperation in the judicial field in order to improve the effectiveness of the prevention and fight against new forms of crimes and cross-border crimes in the new context. Learning and applying experience lessons in judicial organization and operation of advanced countries to Viet Nam, especially in terms of judicial cadre training; promoting technological application in crime investigation activities, court operation and monitoring, tracking and supporting criminal judgment enforcement in the community.

Therefore, it is essential that Viet Nam continues to participate in negotiating and signing Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements (MLAA) with other countries in order to foster judicial cooperation in criminal matters such as criminal extradition and effectively fight against new forms of crime in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution./.

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(1) Klaus Schwab: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Truth National Political Publishing House, Ha Noi, 2018, p. 11, 13

(2) According to the reports from globally known security firms such as Symantec, Kaspersky Lab, and Trend Micro, Viet Nam is in the list of countries facing the highest risk of cyber attacks and having relatively high rate of malicious code infections, twice as high as the word average of 21%. According to the Ministry of Public Security: “The situation of combating cybercrimes in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, Proceedings of the National Science Workshop: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and legal issues for the construction and complete of Vietnamese Legal system” held by the Ministry of Justice, Hanoi, 2019, p. 257

This article was published in the Communist Review, No. 958 (January 2021)