Making effective use of the "national memory"

Ensuring that archives fulfill their mission as the "national memory"—preserving and promoting information from the past—while also guaranteeing freedom of business in this field, promoting the socialization of archival work, and serving all legitimate needs of the people, are the requirements set by the National Assembly for the draft Law on Archives (draft).

A view of the National Assembly's discussion session on the draft Law on Archives (amended).

And after incorporating feedback from the 6th session and making revisions, the draft has truly expanded the scope of accessible information, contributing to better ensuring citizens' right to access information as stipulated in the Constitution. For example, the draft stipulates a maximum deadline of 5 years for submitting documents to historical archives (previously 10 years), but this is calculated from the year the document is submitted to the current archive and applies uniformly to both paper and digital documents.

Shortening the deadline for submitting documents to historical archives contributes to better ensuring citizens' right to access information and promoting the value of archival documents; it limits the permanent loss of archival documents and helps preserve them better. Furthermore, this regulation effectively helps citizens exercise their right to monitor the activities of state agencies.

The draft law empowers the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Public Security , and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to manage and archive documents generated during their operations, reserve archives, archives of special value, and the archives database of the defence, public security, and foreign affairs sectors. However, they are required to annually create and update a catalog of permanent archives under their management and submit it to the Ministry of Interior. This regulation helps fill information gaps in several important areas of social management. Furthermore, the draft stipulates that the head of the agency, organization, or historical archive is responsible for publicly disclosing the list of archives on the electronic portal and website, and for publishing archives under their management.

It can be seen that the draft clearly defines the requirement for entities to proactively provide available information regularly, even without public request, which contributes to ensuring the right to seek information - one of the components of the right to access information.

ANH THU

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/phat-huy-hieu-qua-bo-nho-cua-dan-toc-post741497.html