Two critical ‘socialist’ influences impact the Vietnamese court and procuracy systems: socialist legality and democratic centralism. While borrowed from the Soviet Union, these principles have their own histories in Tsarist and Soviet Russia and Vietnam. They have developed substantially in Vietnam over the near 60-year period since their introduction in the late 1950s. Through an analysis of socialist legality and democratic centralism in the Vietnamese courts and procuracies, we argue that democratic centralism remains palpable as a mechanism for Party-state management of these legal institutions. Socialist legality, on the other hand, is transforming and, in turn, producing new ‘legalities’, including rising competition between the procuracy and court systems. This competition is a new development with uncertain consequences for the courts and procuracies.