Yahoo News 4 Jul 09;
HANOI (AFP) – A Vietnamese legal adviser said Saturday he had filed a new lawsuit against his country's prime minister for violating environmental laws with a controversial bauxite mining plan.
Cu Huy Ha Vu first filed legal action against the communist leader Nguyen Tan Dung on June 11 but a Hanoi court rejected it, saying it had no legal basis.
However, Vu, who is trying to overturn a 2007 decision by the prime minister to allow the giant mining project, has decided to take his complaint to the Supreme People's Court.
He told AFP he filed the new lawsuit Friday and that he had reinforced it with a reference to an article in the Vietnamese constitution on protecting the environment.
In a one-party state where public protest is rare, scientists, intellectuals and former soldiers have combined with fierce critics of the regime to denounce the government's plans for the mining operations, to be run by a state-owned company in Vietnam's Central Highlands.
Critics say the mine's environmental and social damage would far outweigh any economic benefit, and have pointed to security concerns because a Chinese company has been granted a contract to build one of the projects.
The scheme's most prominent opponent is General Vo Nguyen Giap, 97, who led Vietnam's victory over French colonial forces.
In open letters to the government, the general has warned of the danger to the environment, to the lives of ethnic minorities, and to Vietnam's "security and defence."
The Vietnam lawyers' association has said that, contrary to media reports, Vu is not officially a lawyer.
Vu, who holds a doctorate in law, has acknowledged that he cannot register as a lawyer because he is a civil servant.
He has said the association's move is aimed at "tarnishing" his image and blocking his lawsuit and that he has the training required in Vietnam to be a lawyer and that the law allowed him, even without a licence, to file a civil suit.
Vu said he is also allowed to defend people in civil suits, as he has done in the past.
