Monitoring the "life cycle" of legal documents

Discussing in the Hall about the implementation of the Constitution, laws and resolutions of the National Assembly, many delegates said that when we promote legislative delegation, the law only stipulates principles, so the supervision of legal documents is more important than ever. The National Assembly must not only supervise the results of promulgating documents, but also the "life cycle" of documents in social life.

Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long explains at the meeting. Photo: Pham Thang

Limit the situation of dividing too small the fields that need to have regulatory laws

Commenting on the law-making work for the 2021-2025 term, National Assembly Deputy Mai Thi Phuong Hoa (Ninh Binh) stated that the National Assembly, the Government, the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuracy have focused on implementation and have had many breakthrough solutions, achieving a record number of issued legal documents.

However, the delegate frankly said, "There are certain times when legal documents are built and developed spontaneously, not really complying with the basic principles of the legal system, leading to conflicts, overlaps, creating bottlenecks, and hindering development."

National Assembly Delegate Mai Thi Phuong Hoa ( Ninh Binh ) speaks. Photo: Quang Khanh

In the context of summarizing the term, the delegate proposed a number of solutions to contribute to restructuring the legal system. According to the delegate, the current legal system, in addition to the Constitution as the original law, must identify a group of legal documents that are pillars, foundations, centers, and highly stable so that other legal documents must comply and ensure unity, synchronization, and high cohesion. For example, identifying groups of pillar laws such as: a group of laws on state apparatus organization; a group of laws related to human rights and civil rights; a group of laws on business; a group of laws on tax and state budget, etc.

"Doing this will avoid the situation where every specialized law has a priority provision or every specialized law can amend the basic, stable principles of the pillar legal documents, breaking the unity of the legal system. In fact, recently there has been a situation where specialized laws still stipulate tax exemptions and reductions, partial or full retention of fees, and organizational structure...", delegate Mai Thi Phuong Hoa emphasized.

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: Quang Khanh

According to the delegate, laws should basically be regulated by field and not by subject to avoid conflicts, overlaps, duplications or lack of uniformity. Newly emerging fields such as digital economy, data economy, artificial intelligence, etc. need to be promptly legalized or issued with pilot resolutions. The slow formation of new legal sectors and fields will make legal adjustment in some cases passive, lacking guidance and forecasting.

In addition, it is necessary to demonstrate more clearly the State's role in creating development through the reasonable promulgation of laws to promote the development of prioritized sectors and fields, such as the recent National Assembly's Resolution on the International Financial Center.

To overcome the situation where the current legal system has many levels and many types of documents, delegate Mai Thi Phuong Hoa proposed to study and reduce some types of legal documents. At the same time, it is necessary to define more clearly the scope of regulation of each type of legal document. For example, which issues must be regulated in laws and ordinances, which issues must be regulated in decrees and circulars... And more clearly define the authority to issue legal documents of the issuing entities...

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: Quang Khanh

Currently, the Ministry of Justice is presiding over the development of the Project to Perfect the Structure of the Vietnamese Legal System to Meet the Requirements of National Development in the New Era. "This is a very important and necessary task," delegate Mai Thi Phuong Hoa stated, if the organization of the political system is "in line and in the right direction", the legal system must also be restructured so that legal documents are "in line" and more solid and stable, so that the institution will no longer be a bottleneck but will be a driving force for development creation.

Establish and effectively operate a legal knowledge ecosystem

Emphasizing that in the coming time, policy and law making will remain the focus, National Assembly Deputy Dong Ngoc Ba (Gia Lai) said that, in response to the requirements of new thinking and strong legislative authorization, the workload of law making is particularly large. In the immediate future, there are 54 laws and resolutions to be submitted to the National Assembly this session (including hundreds of contents assigned to agencies for detailed regulations and guidance). And the requirement to handle more than 830 contradictory, overlapping, and inappropriate regulations has been pointed out by the Government in the Report on the implementation of the Constitution, laws, and resolutions.

National Assembly Delegate Dong Ngoc Ba (Gia Lai) speaks. Photo: Ho Long

"Strengthening the capacity to build policies and laws, especially of the Government, is still an urgent and long-term task with many potential difficulties."

Emphasizing this, delegate Dong Ngoc Ba suggested that it is urgent to have specific solutions to promote the development and improve the quality of legal science, including legal economics and legal sociology; effectively connect legal theory with law making and enforcement; ensure that legal theory is born from practice and truly illuminates and guides legal practice.

According to delegate Dong Ngoc Ba, the confusion in regulations on land prices, in the demarcation of the scope of content between laws and sub-law documents; many policies and regulations lack long-term vision; amendments and supplements are situational, passive, and reactive in nature; the legal system is at risk of being unreasonably fragmented... are partly due to the theoretical basis.

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: Pham Thang

Delegates suggested that it is necessary to focus on establishing and effectively operating the legal knowledge ecosystem, with the core being research institutes - universities - policy and law making agencies - law application and enforcement agencies. Building and promoting the role of a team of excellent legal scholars, leading legal thinking. Strengthening theoretical research combined with summarizing practices, especially in the fields of land, enterprises, competition, and digital economy to form specific legal doctrines of Vietnam, gradually forming a modern Vietnamese legal school.

At the same time, it is urgent to strengthen professionalism in law-making, focusing on legal organizations in State agencies and the team of specialized legal officers (currently more than 1,900 people, of which about 1,300 are at the central level and about 600 are at the local level).

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: Quang Khanh

The work of reviewing and inspecting documents needs to be strengthened, with innovative methods and approaches before, during and after the issuance and implementation of documents; focusing on content, rationality, feasibility, and adherence to reality, contributing to removing and preventing institutional bottlenecks...

In particular, the National Assembly needs to focus adequately on monitoring legal documents. When we promote legislative delegation, the law only stipulates principles and framework regulations, so monitoring legal documents is more important than ever.

View of the meeting. Photo: Quang Khanh

“A basic principle of supervising the implementation of authorization is to go to the place where that authorization is exercised. The National Assembly must not only supervise the results of the promulgation of documents, but also supervise the entire "life cycle" of that document in social life,” emphasized delegate Dong Ngoc Ba.

Explaining to the National Assembly, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long stated that in the coming time, the Government will direct ministries, branches, agencies and entities to effectively implement the viewpoints, tasks and solutions stated in Resolution 66-NQ/TW to serve the work of building and organizing law enforcement, serving the socio-economic development of the country.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/giam-sat-vong-doi-cua-van-ban-quy-pham-phap-luat-10393653.html