A judge in central Vietnam has been accused of buying sex at a hotel whose owner installed hidden cameras inside its VIP rooms to record their guests having sex.

>> An audio version of the story is available here This complicated case has triggered a debate on whether the owner violated the right to privacy of others pursuant to Article 38 of the Civil Code. Nguyen Duy Huu, chief judge of the People’s Court of the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, said on Monday that the court had received a letter from a resident who accused a judge, named B., at a district-level court of buying sex at Nhat Linh Hotel in Ea Ty Commune, Ea Kar District. The denunciator is Trieu Duc Nhat, 55, the owner of the hotel. Nhat also submitted to the provincial court a video clip showing B. having sex with a prostitute in a Nhat Linh room. The man also filed the same accusation to many other agencies, from local to central levels. Meanwhile, a source on Monday said that B. has already submitted his report on the accusation against him to the district’s Party Committee but it did not reveal the content of that report.  A man, whom Nhat claimed to be B., was clearly seen having sex with a young woman in the 35-minute clip. The footage also showed the man paying money to the woman after their sexual intercourse. “The provincial court will work with the Ea Kar District Party Committee’s Standing Board and Judge B. on the allegation. The court will give assistance to the district’s Party Committee which will be in charge of settling the case,” said Huu, the chief judge. Kieu Thanh Dung, deputy secretary of the district’s Party Committee, said, “The case has been reported to the provincial Party Committee for instructions, as B. is an official under its management.” N.V.B., who is believed to be the accused, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, “Competent agencies are probing the accusation. I cannot say anything for the time being.” According to Nhat’s allegation, Pham Thi Lan, his wife, was caught harboring prostitutes in the Nhat Linh Hotel in October 2011. Nhat then sold the hotel and gave a total of VND200 million (US$9,260) to many people, including B., in exchange for their help for Lan to get a suspended sentence. However, as Lan was finally sentenced to five years and six months in prison, the accuser was upset and lodged accusations to competent agencies against B. and the others who had received his bribe. During a search for materials related to his wife’s case, Nhat accidentally found a clip that showed B. having sex with a prostitute at their former hotel.  When running the hotel, Lan installed a number of secret cameras in its VIP rooms to record sex scenes of local officials and prostitutes, Nhat said, adding that his wife wanted to use such sex clips as “a means to protect herself” when necessary. Besides the clip, Nhat said he has many other videos of many other officials who once had sex with prostitutes at the hotel.‘Nhat’s act is legal’ The allegation has sparked a debate over whether Lan and Nhat committed an offense by installing cameras to secretly record the images of guests and then using them as evidence for their accusations against these people. The debate is specifically centered on whether the couple will be charged with violating “the right to personal secrets” under Article 38 of the Civil Code. Regarding this issue, General Major Tran Ky Roi, director of the Dak Lak Province Police Department, said that Nhat did not violate the law. “Videotaping the wrongdoings, such as an act of buying sex, of government officials and then using such videos as evidence for accusations are not wrong at all,” General Major Roi said.   Regarding the authenticity of the clip and the real identity of B., the official said they can be verified with the help of the Ministry of Public Security.   

Lawyer Ta Quang Tong, deputy chairman of the Dak Lak Bar Association, said Nhat will not be held accountable in this circumstance.  “After videotaping the purported misconduct of a court official, Nhat has not disseminated the video clip to smear the honor and dignity of that official but he submitted it to competent agencies. So his act was totally legal,” Tong said.‘Nhat violates the right to privacy’ The leader of an investigation agency in Ho Chi Minh City said, “According to the press, the hotel owner actively videotaped the sex scenes. It is an abnormal act.” If a hotel owner shoots a suspected law-breaking activity and then uses the recorded images as evidence for an accusation made right after the suspected activity occurred, then that owner’s act can be considered an action positively contributing to law enforcement. “But Nhat’s act was illegal because he did not send the clip to competent agencies immediately after it was created. He only submitted it as evidence for an accusation after his wife committed an offense and he was unable to save her from jail terms even though he had bribed others in exchange for their help,” the official said.  He added that Nhat violated the right to privacy of others. Under Article 38 of the Civil Code, an individual's rights to personal secrets shall be respected and protected by law, and the collection and publication of information and materials on the private life of an individual must be allowed by that person, said Ha Hai, a lawyer from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association. Article 31 of the code also states that an individual shall have the right with respect to that person’s picture and that the use of a picture of an individual must be green-lighted by the person, Ha added. Based on these regulations, the fact that Nhat and his wife installed hidden cameras to videotape their guests’ activities without their consent is a violation of the right to privacy, the lawyer concluded.

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