Article by the National Assembly Chairman commemorating the first General Election Day
On the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the first General Election to elect the Vietnamese National Assembly, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan wrote an article reviewing the achievements of the National Assembly over the past period.
On the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the first General Election to elect the National Assembly of Vietnam (January 6, 1946 - January 6, 2018), National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan wrote an article reviewing the achievements of the National Assembly in the past period, and at the same time clearly identifying the tasks to be done in 2018. Promoting tradition, the National Assembly of Vietnam continues the spirit of innovation, creativity, action, and improving the quality of its activities.
Vietnam News Agency respectfully introduces the full text of the article as follows:
"January 6, 1946 marked an important event in the country's history when for the first time, the Vietnamese people, through their votes, had the right to directly choose and elect talented and virtuous people to the National Assembly to shoulder the country's work.
Through that, the Vietnamese people entrusted the National Assembly with the responsibility of promulgating the Constitution and establishing the institutions of the People's Democratic State. The success of the General Election marked the birth of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The election is the basis for affirming that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is a State democratically and legally elected by the People.
Since its early days, the Vietnamese National Assembly has clearly demonstrated its democratic spirit in the General Election conducted according to democratic and progressive principles, including: universal, equal, direct and secret ballot.
For the first time in the history of the nation, the people were able to directly elect their representatives to participate in the State apparatus, as President Ho Chi Minh affirmed: “The general election is an opportunity for the entire nation to freely choose talented and virtuous people to shoulder the country's work... The general election means freedom, equality; it means democracy, solidarity.”
The democratic, creative and responsible spirit of the National Assembly deputies was also demonstrated in the intellectual and responsible discussions of the National Assembly deputies at the first sessions of the 1st National Assembly. At the 2nd session of the 1st National Assembly, the first long session of the National Assembly, the people were allowed to attend and follow the proceedings of the plenary sessions of the National Assembly.
During the first Government question-and-answer session, National Assembly deputies asked many questions and debated with Government members on very important issues both domestically and internationally.
In response to questions from National Assembly delegates, President Ho Chi Minh emphasized: “The Government would first like to thank the National Assembly for its great concern for national issues and this questioning can clearly understand the democratic spirit of Vietnam.”
The first question-and-answer session of the National Assembly that year lasted until midnight, demonstrating the high sense of responsibility of the National Assembly deputies as well as the Government in fulfilling their responsibilities.
In considering and adopting the nation's first Constitution, National Assembly delegates also debated democratically and thoroughly all the fundamental issues of a progressive Constitution such as the political system, the organization of state power, and the rights and obligations of citizens.
The Constitution is the crystallization of the wisdom and creativity of the constitution makers directly elected by the people.
Evaluating the first Constitution in the history of the country, President Ho Chi Minh affirmed that it was: “a historical vestige of the first Constitution in the East Asia… That Constitution declared to the world that Vietnam was independent, the Vietnamese people had all freedoms…, Vietnamese women were equal to men to enjoy all the freedoms of a citizen. That Constitution expressed a spirit of close solidarity among the Vietnamese people and a spirit of integrity and fairness among the classes.”
Since those first sessions, through many ups and downs of history, the spirit of democracy, solidarity, and responsibility for the benefit of the people has always been clearly demonstrated in the activities of the National Assembly.
14 National Assembly terms with the enthusiasm, intelligence, efforts and creativity of thousands of National Assembly deputies have built and promulgated 5 Constitutions, hundreds of codes, laws and ordinances.
In addition, the National Assembly also regularly reviews and amends laws to regulate social relations, creating an increasingly complete legal system for the State to manage by law in the fields of economy, society, security, national defense, foreign affairs, etc.
Each Constitution, each law, each resolution, each important decision of the National Assembly is closely linked to the development process of the nation, reflecting the country's innovation process.
In particular, during the period of national renovation from 1986 to present, the National Assembly has promptly promulgated the 1992 Constitution, the 2013 Constitution and hundreds of laws and ordinances to create an important legal basis for the development of socialist democracy, building a socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam, ensuring human rights, rights and legitimate interests of citizens, contributing to promoting the comprehensive renovation of the country and international integration.
Promoting the 72-year tradition of the National Assembly, in 2017, our National Assembly also achieved remarkable achievements. The spirit of innovation, creativity, and action for the benefit of the People and the country continues to be demonstrated in the research and innovation of the arrangement of the National Assembly's working program.
The innovation in the way of discussing draft laws, socio-economic and state budget issues, reports of competent agencies, increasing the discussion time in the Hall, enhancing dialogue and debate have created an atmosphere of innovation, contributing to improving the quality of legislative activities, supervision and decision-making on important issues of the country.
The arrangement of live radio and television broadcasting of more plenary sessions of the National Assembly, including contents discussed for the first time in the Hall such as reports of the judiciary; reports on handling complaints and denunciations; reports on corruption prevention and control; reports on the implementation of national goals on gender equality, has attracted the attention of voters and people nationwide, creating more connection between the activities of the National Assembly and voters, receiving support and appreciation from all walks of life.
The legislative activities of the National Assembly are increasingly becoming more substantial, the quality of legislative activities is increasingly enhanced, solving many problems in social life, with many major laws, having important significance for the development of the country in the fields of justice, economics, finance, culture, society, science and technology, national defense and security...
In 2017, the National Assembly passed 18 laws and commented on 15 draft laws, many of which were difficult, complicated, and had a very wide scope of regulation. During the discussion, there were many different opinions. But in the end, through frank discussions and convincing arguments, the National Assembly reached consensus and the draft laws were passed with a very high rate.
The National Assembly's supervisory activities in 2017 also left their mark with supervisory topics being prominent issues that caused public outrage.
For the first time, the National Assembly has conducted supreme supervision over the implementation of policies and laws on reforming the State administrative apparatus.
Although limited to the 2011-2016 period, the National Assembly's supervision has pointed out the obstacles to the reform process, both in terms of legal institutions, intertwined interests and responsibilities of related entities, including the responsibility of the National Assembly itself, thereby proposing synchronous solutions to reform the State administrative apparatus more drastically and effectively in the coming period.
This is the basis for contributing to the successful implementation of the Resolutions of the 6th Central Conference, Session XII, on continuing to innovate and reorganize the apparatus of the political system.
In the questioning activities, 2017 marked a new point in the questioning and answering activities, which was to increase the questioning and answering time to 3 days to create conditions for National Assembly deputies to have more time to ask and answer questions to clarify issues related to the questioning content.
With the increase in time but the number of people being questioned unchanged, the number of National Assembly deputies questioning was the largest ever. The question and answer session took place in a democratic, constructive, and active debate atmosphere, clarifying the responsibilities of the people being questioned, and at the same time, demonstrating the capacity of National Assembly deputies being promoted.
To enhance synchronization and effectiveness, the National Assembly Standing Committee, together with the Government and the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, signed and issued a joint resolution on social supervision and criticism, creating a coordination mechanism to organize the implementation of this important content.
In 2017, the National Assembly also discussed, carefully considered, objectively and comprehensively reviewed to approve many important projects and decisions of the country, including breakthrough policies that have a great impact on the socio-economic development of the country, such as the investment policy for the Project to build a number of expressway sections on the North-South Eastern route in the 2017-2020 period; Feasibility study report for the Project to reclaim land, compensate, support and resettle Long Thanh International Airport; piloting specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Ho Chi Minh City; piloting bad debt settlement of credit institutions, etc.
2017 was also the year the National Assembly issued many decisions on personnel work, including the dismissal or temporary suspension of the performance of duties and powers of National Assembly deputies in a number of cases of disciplinary action or violations that were prosecuted and temporarily detained to serve the investigation.
Decisions on personnel work are carried out by the National Assembly and the National Assembly Standing Committee in a strict manner, following the prescribed procedures and order, demonstrating strictness, close coordination in the personnel work process of the Party and State, and creating high consensus.
Parliamentary diplomacy has also achieved remarkable results, showing that the position of our National Assembly in the international arena has been significantly raised. This is demonstrated by the record number of high-level delegations of the National Assembly and parliaments of other countries paying official visits to our country, as well as the solemn reception and exceptions that countries have given to the high-level delegations of the Vietnamese National Assembly.
Success is also demonstrated through the recognition and appreciation of the statements of our National Assembly leaders at multilateral forums, as well as bilateral meetings.
In particular, the successful organization of the Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium on “Responding to Climate Change, Lawmakers’ Actions to Implement the Sustainable Development Goals” in Ho Chi Minh City is also an important highlight in the overall results of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs activities in 2017.
Entering 2018, the third year of the 14th National Assembly, which is also a pivotal year in implementing the Socio-Economic Development Plan for the 2016-2020 period, there are many important tasks facing our National Assembly, requiring the National Assembly to continue promoting the spirit of innovation, creativity and action to complete the assigned tasks.
In legislative activities, the National Assembly must continue to innovate and improve the quality of legislative activities to complete the 2018 Law and Ordinance Building Program, focusing on continuing to institutionalize the 2013 Constitution and Party Resolutions, perfecting the legal system on socialist-oriented market economic institutions, ensuring national defense, security, social order and safety, human rights, basic rights and obligations of citizens, preventing and combating violations of the law, corruption, and waste, meeting the requirements of sustainable development of the country, and serving the interests of the people.
In particular, in 2018, there were major law projects with important contents such as the Law on Anti-Corruption (amended), the Law on Denunciation (amended); the Law on Special Administrative and Economic Units, the Law on National Defense (amended), the Law on Cyber Security..., requiring National Assembly deputies and National Assembly agencies to continue to promote their intelligence, listen to the opinions of voters, experts and people of all walks of life to pass law projects with higher quality and feasibility.
In deciding on important national issues, the National Assembly continues to improve the quality of decisions in a more substantive direction, based on scientific arguments and evidence to ensure national interests, in accordance with the will and aspirations of the people, creating positive impacts to promote the country's socio-economic development.
In the supervision activities, the focus in 2018 is the thematic supervision activities of the National Assembly on the implementation of policies and laws on management and use of state capital and assets at enterprises and equitization of state-owned enterprises in the period of 2011-2016 and the thematic supervision activities of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the implementation of policies and laws on management and use of foreign loans in the period of 2011-2016.
In particular, as it is the third year of the term, at the end of 2018, the National Assembly will conduct a vote of confidence for the person holding the position elected and approved by the National Assembly.
This requires National Assembly deputies and National Assembly agencies to promote intelligence and wisdom in carrying out supervisory activities to create positive changes to overcome limitations and weaknesses in law enforcement practices.
In 2018, many important bilateral and multilateral parliamentary diplomacy activities will continue to take place. In the immediate future, our National Assembly, as Chair and host of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-26) with the theme “Parliamentary Partnership for Peace, Innovation and Sustainable Development.”
This is an event for our National Assembly to continue to demonstrate Vietnam's position and voice in the international arena, strengthen solidarity and friendship among peoples of all countries; contribute to the successful implementation of the open, multilateral and diversified foreign policy of the Party and State.
To carry out these important tasks, the National Assembly will continue to have innovative solutions regarding the working program, processes and procedures for carrying out work, strengthen close coordination between the National Assembly and relevant agencies, strongly shift from a deliberative National Assembly to a debating National Assembly, ensuring effectiveness and efficiency in its activities.
The 72nd anniversary of the first General Election to elect the Vietnamese National Assembly and the beginning of the new year 2018 is an opportunity for us to review and be proud of the achievements of the National Assembly in the past, and at the same time, identify more clearly what needs to be done in the new year.
We believe that, with the tradition and experience accumulated over 72 years, with a sense of responsibility to the People and the future of the country, with the motto of solidarity, creativity, and action for the benefit of the People, our National Assembly will certainly continue to promote its glorious tradition, excellently fulfill its assigned tasks, worthy of the trust of the Party, State and People"./.
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