"Vietnam's Lawyers Cry Foul at New Law Forcing Them to Inform on Clients," 23 June 2017

Defense lawyers...are bristling at a new law passed by the Vietnamese National Assembly this week that would force lawyers to inform on their clients to authorities.

...The...assembly approved Article 19, section 3 of the penal code, which states that lawyers will be held "criminally accountable" for "not reporting on national security crimes or other especially serious crimes which the person he/she is defending is preparing to carry out, is carrying out, or has carried out and the defender clearly knows about it while carrying out his/her defense duty."

The new code, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2018, has raised sharp concerns among lawyers in Vietnam, who say they already have a hard time defending clients in the one-party communist state that is mounting a crackdown against bloggers, environmental activists and government critics and which uses a broad definition of state security to stifle dissent..

"Lawyers in Vietnam have long been subject to many difficulties and obstacles due to the lack of goodwill of the prosecuting organs. Yet now they have added another responsibility for us which is reporting on our own clients," Lawyer Ngo Ngoc Trai told RFA's Vietnamese service.

Lawyer Vo An Don told RFA the new regulation "is completely contrary to the ethics code of lawyers, because lawyers are obliged to protect their clients, while at the same time, clients must really trust the lawyers before they tell them everything."