E/CN.4/1995/31/Add.4 page 17 The Ministry of Justice is thus responsible only for preparing draft legislation and regulations, overseeing the judicial organization and functioning of provincial and district courts, training judicial staff and increasing public awareness of the law. 55. According to the persons with whom the Working Group spoke, this means that, as the courts are independent, it is quite natural for them to be responsible for verifying the legality of detention from the time of arrest until the trial proceedings, when the accused appears before a judge for the first time. 56. The Working Group, referring to article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recently ratified by Viet Nam, wondered about the compatibility of the role of the public prosecutors with the principles governing the verification of the legality of detention laid down in paragraphs 3 and 4 of article 9: "3. Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power ... 4. Anyone who is deprived of be entitled to take proceedings may decide without delay on the release if his detention is not his liberty by arrest or detention shall before a court, in order that that court lawfulness of his detention and order his lawful." 57. The Working Group took the view that, however real the people’s prosecutors’ guarantees of independence, they were not yet such - despite the reform of 1960 - that they could be likened (equivalent guarantees theory) to those pertaining to the courts, for the following reasons: (a) Firstly, the people’s prosecutors’ office admittedly stressed the independence of the Department of Public Prosecutions as regards the Government by pointing out that the head of the Supreme Prosecution Department was a member of parliament elected by the National Assembly; however, regardless of its merits, this interpretation can nevertheless be qualified. As the Constitution (art. 4 of which provides that: "the Communist Party of Viet Nam, as the advance guard of the working class, the faithful representative of the interests of the working class, of the working people and of the nation as a whole, and as an adherent of Marxism-Leninism and of the thoughts of Ho Chi Minh, is the driving force of the State and society. All the Party’s organizations shall operate within the framework of the Constitution and law"), provides for a political system based on the one-party principle, the question of independence, although no longer relevant with regard to the Executive, is still relevant with regard to the party in power; (b) Secondly, the lack of irremovability, which is one of the essential attributes of judicial independence, must be taken into consideration; (c) Finally, the fact that the remedy available to an individual during pre-trial detention can be considered only by the people’s prosecutor, means that it is closer to a discretionary hierarchical remedy than to a judicial remedy, within the meaning of article 14 of the International Covenant on