Legal awareness during the pandemic period should be enhanced

​Lawyers from the Provincial Legal Counseling Center (Lawyers Association) give free legal advice and support to people in Phu Thanh Commune (Nhon Trach District) at the mobile law propaganda session organized by the Lawyers Association cooperating with the Provincial Farmers' Association

Lawyer Vong Khieng, Director of the Provincial Legal Counseling Center (Lawyer Association), said that this shows a low sense of respect for the community as well as a low law compliance of a part of the people.

* Careless behaviors still exist

According to the Provincial Public Security, in just over a month of implementing the social distancing according to the Directive No. 16 of the Prime Minister of the Government (from July 9 to August 9), the Public Security forces in the province has sanctioned 13,000 cases of violating the social distancing regulations with a total amount of VND20 billion. Common violations are still going out when it's not really necessary, throwing masks in the wrong regulated places, not wearing masks, etc. In addition, there are still many people unconcerned walking, cycling exercise in the street, gathering to drink and play cards, etc.

So far, the People's Committee of Trang Dai Ward has recorded dozens of cases of administrative violations on doing exercises in the street during the social distancing. Most of these people go out to some major road axis in the ward in order to jog, do exercise, and even not wear masks. Under that situation, the people reported to the authorized force of the ward come to check and handle.

In addition, a number of other violations related to the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic that often occurred in the past time such as resisting the people performing their duties at checkpoints of epidemic prevention; falsifying documents to get through the points; posting and sharing the false information about the epidemic situation, etc.

Specifically, the Bien Hoa City Public Security has just a dossier and imposed an administrative fine of VND5 million against Mr. Nguyen Minh Tien (27 years old, living in Tan Bien Ward, Bien Hoa City) for posting the false information about vaccination against the Covid-19 on the social networks.

Previously, on September 01, seeing on the Facebook social network of spreading the information about a person suffered from anaphylaxis after injecting the Sinopharm's Vero Cell vaccine, Mr. Nguyen Minh Tien commented on this Facebook page that: "In Zone No. 8, after injecting and pulling out the needle, the injected person is convulsively struggled". Then, realizing that the information was incorrect, Mr. Tien removed the above comment. At the Public Security agency, Mr. Tien admitted to posting the false information and expressed remorse and regret for posting this information.

* Everyone should voluntarily compliance with the regulations

Lawyer Vong Khieng said that some of the causes leading to the above violations are the low awareness of law enforcement and compliance of the violators; Legal knowledge is limited. While these violations can cause the epidemic to spread more widely, tracing the F0 cases will be more difficult for the competent authorities as well as a burden for the society.

According to Lawyer Vong Khieng, in order to raise people's awareness in the epidemic prevention and control, the authorized agencies need to strictly handle the behaviors violating the Directive No. 16 as well as the regulations on the epidemic prevention. Depending on the severity of the violation, it can be administratively or criminally handled. Especially for those who violate the regulations on the epidemic prevention and spreading the epidemic to other people, they can be punished from 01 to 12 years of imprisonment according to the Article No. 240 of the Criminal Code 2015.

In addition, many people also said that, to enhance the local people comply with the law, thereby raising the community's awareness in the epidemic prevention and control, authorized sectors and local governments need to strengthen the propaganda of the epidemic prevention and control regulations; In which, it is necessary to pay more attention to analyze the consequences when violating so that people can understand clearly, limit the violating behaviors due to subjective errors, lack of knowledge because of limited understanding of the law.

“Once, the people are aware of the consequences of their behaviors, they will immediately form awareness, self-discipline, and obey to the law observance. It is mainly awareness, civic responsibility and the spirit of respect for the law that will form a solid "shield" in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic and soon bring the society back to the new normal state".

Quynh Thu

Lawyer Vong Khieng, Director of the Provincial Legal Counseling Center (Provincial Lawyers Association), said that building a sense of law observance and respect for the community is to uphold the human values, build the human character; uphold the sense of mastery, respect and observance of the law; appreciate the good moral values, cultural lifestyles, senses of responsibilities, civic duties, etc. This is a very important thing that needs to be further interested and promoted by the branches and levels; especially innovating and diversifying the propaganda methods; accelerating the application of information technology in widely propagating the legal knowledge to the people.​