The area around the National Convention Center and Thang Long Avenue, Hanoi . Photo: baotintuc.vn
Could you please explain the context and reasons for the current need to amend the Law on the Capital City?
In recent years, Hanoi has achieved comprehensive accomplishments, firmly establishing its role as the national political and administrative center and a crucial driving force for national growth. However, its development still faces many major bottlenecks such as overloaded infrastructure, pressing environmental pollution issues, and inadequacies in planning and resource management, preventing it from developing in proportion to its potential and unique position.
Against the backdrop of a volatile international situation and the need to enhance national competitiveness, Hanoi requires strong institutional breakthroughs. Creating a "sufficiently broad legal framework" is a prerequisite for the capital city to achieve double-digit growth and to play a leading role in driving and spreading development throughout the region and the country.
Resolution No. 02-NQ/TW and Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW of the Politburo have identified the drafting of the amended Law on the Capital City as an objective requirement to strongly shift the mindset from "policy implementation" to "policy design". This is a strategic step to establish a superior legal framework, implementing thorough decentralization and delegation of power according to the motto "local authorities decide, local authorities act, local authorities are responsible". Through this, a solid foundation is created for the Capital City to have sufficient authority and tools to proactively break through, aiming towards the vision of becoming a global city in the new era.
Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hoan, Director of the Department of Legal Document Drafting (Ministry of Justice)
Sir, as the lead agency in drafting the law, how has the Ministry of Justice reformed its thinking and approach to meet practical requirements?
Structurally, the draft Law on the Capital City (amended) in 2026 comprises 9 Chapters and 36 Articles (a reduction of 18 articles compared to the 2024 Law). Instead of providing detailed regulations, the law focuses on comprehensive and maximum decentralization and delegation of power to the Hanoi City government to increase its initiative, autonomy, and accountability, while still ensuring central government oversight and the capital's accountability. Four new approaches are central to the drafting of the Law on the Capital City (amended):
Firstly, the role of the capital city needs to be shifted from "policy implementation" to "policy design." This is a groundbreaking approach to establishing Hanoi's central position, allowing the city to proactively create a breakthrough legal framework instead of passively waiting for regulations from the central government.
The draft law empowers the capital city to issue legal documents that may stipulate different provisions or supplement specific measures for issues not yet guided by the Government, in order to thoroughly address "bottlenecks" in traffic, environment, and administrative procedures.
The granting of the Capital City the role of "policy design" is clearly demonstrated in Article 8 of the Draft Law on the drafting and promulgation of legal documents by the Capital City government and Article 9 of the Draft Law stipulating the pilot mechanism and policies.
Hanoi has the right to pilot new mechanisms and policies that are unprecedented or different from current regulations in key areas such as: organizational structure, digital economic models, urban governance, and resource mobilization for development... In particular, establishing a "controlled testing" (sandbox) mechanism will create maximum space for innovative governance and economic models.
This mechanism allows the capital city to always choose the most favorable policies, even if central government documents issued later stipulate otherwise, thus maintaining its sustainable superiority. The implementation of the 192 delegated special powers will be linked to accountability and close oversight from the National Assembly and the Government, ensuring the capital city develops to an international level and leads the ripple effect throughout the region.
It is expected that the amended Capital City Law will address major issues such as traffic, the environment, and administrative procedures.
Secondly, the approach to drafting the Law only stipulated framework issues and matters of principle. Deeply understanding Resolution 66-NQ/TW, the draft Law has shifted significantly from providing detailed regulations to establishing framework principles and a basic legal framework. This approach aims to create flexibility for the City government to proactively adjust policies according to constantly changing realities, ensuring the Law's long-term stability without the need for continuous amendments and additions. However, to ensure transparency and compliance with the Constitution, the Law retains specific provisions for several key areas such as taxation, land, and issues related to human rights.
For example, regarding organizational structure and staffing, the draft Law does not rigidly specify the number of agencies or personnel quotas, but only establishes a framework of authority for the City People's Council to proactively make flexible decisions according to actual needs. Regarding the issuance of documents and administrative procedures, the Law promotes decentralization to the City government, not specifying detailed procedures, but instead empowering Hanoi to design its own detailed procedures, while also allowing adjustments to regulations to simplify paperwork and promote digital transformation. Regarding the application of laws, the City is free to choose the most favorable preferential policies from future documents, helping the Capital Law maintain long-term stability without frequent amendments.
Thirdly, thorough and comprehensive decentralization of power to the City government, coupled with accountability, is essential. Institutionalizing the principle of "stronger empowerment - more comprehensive decentralization and delegation of power - clearer accountability" is a consistent requirement throughout the drafting of the revised Capital City Law.
Accordingly, the draft Law stipulates comprehensive and maximum delegation of power to the Hanoi city government to increase the initiative, creativity, autonomy, and accountability of the Hanoi city government. Based on the draft Law submitted to the National Assembly, 192 powers are assigned to the Hanoi city government (including 124 powers of the People's Council; 56 powers of the People's Committee; and 12 powers of the Chairman of the People's Committee).
One of the key areas of strong decentralization implemented is: expanding autonomy in organizational structure and public service (Article 7), empowering the City People's Council to decide on staffing levels, expanding the authority to recruit, appoint, evaluate, and determine income, as well as the authority to hire and appoint heads of public service units and state-owned enterprises, in order to improve governance quality and streamline the apparatus.
Besides comprehensive decentralization, Chapter VIII of the draft law focuses on improving the mechanisms for supervision, inspection, and accountability, ensuring that policies are implemented correctly and effectively within the scope of authority, preventing abuse of power, and creating a solid legal basis for Hanoi to proactively and flexibly decide on development issues within its assigned authority.
Fourth, establish groundbreaking, innovative, and creative legal spaces. The draft law creates space for digital governance and high technology by promoting data-driven governance, artificial intelligence, and developing "high-tech city" models with superior infrastructure incentives. At the same time, Hanoi is empowered to establish controlled testing mechanisms (sandboxes) and economic zones and free trade zones to proactively pilot new economic models.
The draft law also expands the development space for the capital city through the planning and efficient exploitation of underground, low-level, and high-level spaces, ensuring synchronous infrastructure connections to serve economic and scientific and technological development. In particular, the draft establishes a "space" for officials by granting legal exemption to those who "dare to think, dare to act, for the common good" in cases where there is no self-serving motive.
To ensure the effective operation of these spaces, the Law stipulates a breakthrough financial resource mechanism through financial and budgetary mechanisms, mobilization from society, and other legitimate sources of funding and revenue. These regulations are the leverage for the Capital to create new growth drivers in the era of national development.
The draft Law on the Capital City (amended) promotes decentralization and delegation of power coupled with accountability.
With an approach that leans towards "development creation" and "empowerment," how should the draft Law on the Capital City (amended) be further improved, sir?
The draft Law on the Capital City (amended) is being developed in the spirit of Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW and Resolution No. 02-NQ/TW, with an innovative approach that not only amends the 2024 Law on the Capital City but also aims to establish a groundbreaking legal framework, shifting from an "administrative management" mindset to a "development-oriented" one.
The draft law designs a comprehensive mechanism for decentralization and delegation of power to Hanoi in key areas, but it also poses a major challenge: granting strong powers while ensuring compliance with the Constitution, international treaties, and without affecting national defense, security, foreign affairs, religion, and national sovereignty.
Expanding authority also requires corresponding enforcement capacity, accountability, and mechanisms for checks and balances to avoid the risk of abuse of power or ineffective implementation. Pilot testing of unprecedented mechanisms also needs to be cautious and controlled, especially in the context of deep integration and the rapidly changing international situation.
From conferences and workshops held to gather feedback on the draft law, agencies have suggested that it is necessary to further clarify the principle of decentralization coupled with power control; improve regulations on supervision, inspection, and accountability in a specific and feasible manner; and simultaneously develop strict criteria and conditions for special mechanisms and pilot models, ensuring a mechanism for timely evaluation, summarization, and adjustment.
Simultaneously, the city government needs to improve its governance capacity, accelerate digital transformation, ensure transparency in decision-making, and strengthen coordination between the central and local levels, as well as within the Capital Region.
The draft Law on the Capital City (amended) is expected to create momentum for rapid and sustainable growth, cultural and human development, with the quality of life of the people as the central focus. With a 100-year vision, the Law will create a stable institutional foundation, promote Hanoi's leading role, unlock resources, and contribute to elevating the capital to the level of advanced capitals in the region and the world.
Thank you very much, sir!
Source: https://baotintuc.vn/thoi-su/luat-thu-do-sua-doi-mo-duong-cho-ha-noi-but-pha-20260407103933228.htm
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