Abstract:
John Gillespie is Senior lecturer, Law School, Deakin University, Melbourne Australia; Barrister and Solicitor
Victoria; LLM, BSc., Monash. Abstract: Throughout Vietnam's long history, the central elite and peripheral
farming communities have been legally and culturally divided. This dichotomy was
never as complete as the famous injunction that "the emperor's writ stops at the village
gate" infers. Initially, during the period of French colonisation and more recently since
the introduction of doi moi (renovation) economic reforms, central authorities have
attempted to unify land management with universal normative law. This experiment
has stimulated widespread non-compliance with land laws in urban centres; in some
areas compliance is a fringe phenomenon. In this divided legal geography, pockets of
non-compliance give the appearance of autonomy from state legality-suggesting the
existence of plural land law sub-systems. But an analysis of case studies concerning
land use right applications, squatting, court decisions and compulsory acquisition
reveals complex relationships between land occupiers and the state. A myriad of formal
and relational connections blurs the interface between state and society, suggesting that
the official and unofficial aspects of land management are best understood as two
components of the same system. Urban case studies suggest officials and the public
share a common culture that sustains relational networks binding state land
management and local land practices. In this relational matrix, the legal pluralistic
concept of 'non-state legal sub-systems' is difficult to substantiate. Where relational
networks are weak, such as between hill tribes and the central state, non-state legal
subsytems continue to flourish.
