Vietnam National Assembly - 80 years of innovation and development in constitutional and legislative activities, perfecting the socialist rule of law state of Vietnam

Since the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Vietnam has promulgated five Constitutions, including: the 1946 Constitution, the 1959 Constitution, the 1980 Constitution, the 1992 Constitution, and the 2013 Constitution. These Constitutions were all born in certain historical circumstances and times, aiming to institutionalize the viewpoints and guidelines of the Communist Party of Vietnam in each stage of the country's development.

Scene of the opening session of the 6th Session, 15th National Assembly . Photo: Trong Hai

At the workshop "Vietnam National Assembly - 80 years of innovation and development in constitutional and legislative activities", held on the morning of October 21, at the National Assembly House, organized by the Law Committee in coordination with the Institute for Legislative Studies under the National Assembly Standing Committee, emphasizing that constitutional and legislative activities are one of the extremely important contents in the activities of the National Assembly, Director of the Institute for Legislative Studies Nguyen Van Hien stated that the organization of the workshop aims to provide scientific and practical arguments and evaluate events, summarize history, analyze lessons learned, thereby making forecasts and recommendations to continue innovating constitutional and legislative activities to meet the requirements of building and perfecting the socialist rule of law state in the coming time.

Director of the Institute for Legislative Studies Nguyen Van Hien speaks at the Workshop. Photo: Internet.

The Vietnamese National Assembly has gone through 80 years of construction, innovation and development. Speaking about the 1946 Constitution, Dr. Duong Thi Thanh Mai emphasized that this is a Constitution that deeply reflects President Ho Chi Minh's constitutional democratic rule of law ideology, with three core values: The democratic Constitution establishes people's sovereignty associated with the right to national self-determination; The Constitution is a legal means for the people to transfer people's power to the State to implement and control the State's implementation of the power entrusted by the people; The Constitution establishes the principle of "ensuring citizens' freedom and democratic rights" including political rights, personal freedom rights, property rights, and people's rights. These core values ​​of the 1946 Constitution were inherited and transformed through the historical periods of the country, creating a challenging constitutional history of Vietnam.

After the victorious resistance war against France in 1954, the North moved forward to the socialist revolution, and the South continued the people's democratic revolution. The 1959 Constitution (amended Constitution) reflected that new social relationship and created a legal basis for the cause of building socialism in the North and achieving national reunification.

In terms of legislation, the most important change is the National Assembly. If previously, in the 1946 Constitution, the National Assembly only had the right to "enact laws", then in the 1959 Constitution, "the National Assembly is the sole body with legislative power of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam". During the 1959 Constitution period, the National Assembly of Vietnam from the 2nd to the 5th term had been in operation for 16 years (from July 1960 to June 1976), the National Assembly passed 01 Constitution and 07 laws, the National Assembly Standing Committee passed 16 ordinances to perfect the state apparatus, expand democracy to the people, strengthen dictatorship against the enemy to protect the State, protect the regime, rights and legitimate interests of the people.

Next, the construction of the 1980 Constitution took place in the context of our glorious victory in the resistance war against the US to save the country, while at the same time facing new difficulties in the Northern border war and the war against the genocidal regime in Cambodia. However, after the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the renovation policy was introduced, requiring a comprehensive revision of the 1980 Constitution.

On August 12, 1991, the National Assembly issued a Resolution “on the draft amendment to the 1980 Constitution and the organization of public consultation”. Subsequently, the 1992 Constitution was adopted on April 15, 1992 at the 11th session of the 8th National Assembly. This is a completely new Constitution, responding to the guidelines and policies of the Communist Party of Vietnam on national construction in the period of renovation.

Faced with the need to institutionalize major orientations for national development identified in the Party Platform (amended and supplemented in 2011) at the Constitutional level, the study, amendment and supplementation of the 1992 Constitution was set out as inevitable and urgent. To implement the Party's policy on amending and supplementing the 1992 Constitution, on August 6, 2011, the 13th National Assembly issued Resolution No. 06 on amending and supplementing the 1992 Constitution and established the Constitutional Amendment Committee. After more than 2 years, going through a strict, democratic and scientific constitutional process with the active participation of all classes of people, the draft Constitution was unanimously approved by the 13th National Assembly at the 6th session on November 28, 2013, marking an important development in the history of constitutionalism.

It can be said that studying the Vietnamese Constitution through different stages of development shows that our State, through constitutional activities, has properly, fully and promptly institutionalized the Party's viewpoint on constitutionalism in the Vietnamese Constitutions. Each promulgated Constitution marks a new step of development of Vietnam's constitutionalism in the direction of reflecting Vietnam's constitutional needs, meeting the requirements of national development in each period.

Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW dated November 9, 2022 of the 6th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee on continuing to build and perfect the socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam in the new period also has many contents related to constitutional activities in our country in the new period. This is also the political basis for innovating constitutional activities in Vietnam in the new period./.

Thu Hang