Amendment of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations: Need to decentralize the power to impose penalties to the department level

Delegates give comments on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations - Photo: VGP/DA

After 12 years of implementation, the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations has undergone many amendments, contributing to enhancing the effectiveness of state management, ensuring social order and safety, promoting economic development and international integration.

However, the implementation practice shows that some provisions of the Law are not really suitable for the context of extensive innovation in the organization of the administrative apparatus and social management methods. Especially, in the context that the whole country is promoting the arrangement of administrative units, reducing focal points, and piloting the abolition of district-level administrative levels.

Therefore, the requirement is to continue reviewing and perfecting relevant legal regulations, ensuring feasibility, consistency and conformity with modern management practices.

Implementing the National Assembly's Law and Ordinance Development Program, the Government has assigned the Ministry of Justice to preside over the drafting of the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations. In the past, the Ministry has organized many activities to collect opinions from experts, scientists and practical agencies to complete the draft.

At the scientific workshop "Comments on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations" organized by Democracy and Law Magazine (Ministry of Justice), Dr. Dinh Van Minh, former Director of the Legal Department (Government Inspectorate) commented that amending the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations is very necessary and directly affects all classes of people. One of the major challenges is how to ensure social order and discipline without infringing on individual rights and freedoms.

According to Dr. Dinh Van Minh, it is necessary to clarify the difference between inspection and examination activities; at the same time, the inspection organization at the ministerial and departmental levels should not be abolished without a suitable replacement plan. In addition, decentralizing the power to impose penalties to specialized agencies at the departmental level will help improve the effectiveness of law enforcement.

Regarding the proposal to amend Point c, Clause 1, Article 6 of the draft Law, Professor, Dr. Vu Cong Giao (University of Law, Vietnam National University, Hanoi) said that the regulation that the statute of limitations for penalties is 6 months from the date the competent authority receives the dossier but not more than 3 years from the end of the violation is unreasonable.

Not counting the time the prosecution agency accepts the case into the statute of limitations may be disadvantageous to the person being punished, contradicting the argument in the explanatory section of the draft. Prof. Dr. Vu Cong Giao proposed to keep the current regulations or shorten the statute of limitations to 1-2 years, including for cases transferred from the prosecution agency.

Dr. Dinh Van Minh, former Director of the Legal Department (Government Inspectorate) commented on the draft Law. Photo: VGP/DA

Regarding the proposal to increase the maximum fine in the procedure of sanctioning without a record, Professor, Dr. Vu Cong Giao warned of the risk of abuse of power when there is no record as evidence, which can easily lead to a lack of transparency.

Increasing the fine too high also blurs the line between simple procedures and official procedures; therefore, it is recommended to keep the fine as simple as it is now, with the mandatory condition of recording the incident with technical equipment (such as cameras), storing it for at least 3 months to ensure legality and serve the purpose of searching and complaining.

Director of the Department of Document Inspection and Administrative Violations Management Ho Quang Huy said that it is expected that at the 9th session, the 15th National Assembly will consider and approve the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations.

This is an important step in the process of institutional reform, reorganization of the state apparatus and innovation of state management methods in the field of administrative violation handling to meet the requirements set forth in the new context.

Competent agencies and organizations from the central to local levels have expressed their desire that the scope of this amendment should be more comprehensive and extensive. However, due to the short time frame and the special nature of the law directly related to human rights and civil rights, the amendment requires careful study, selection of key issues, ensuring that it does not disrupt the current legal system.

Dieu Anh

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/sua-doi-luat-xu-ly-vi-pham-hanh-chinh-can-phan-quyen-xu-phat-cho-cap-so-102250515122803512.htm