National Assembly delegates from Nghe An discuss draft laws on the organization of the Government and local governments.

Delegates discussed the draft Law on Government Organization (amended); the draft Law on Local Government Organization (amended) and the draft Resolution of the National Assembly regulating the handling of a number of issues related to the reorganization of the State apparatus.

There are not many new points about the organization of local government apparatus.

At the discussion session, the opinions of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An also mentioned many contents of the draft Law on Organization of Local Government (amended). Ms. Thai Thi An Chung - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation commented that the content of the draft Law submitted to the National Assembly only focused on clarifying the assignment, decentralization, and delegation of powers; while the organization of the People's Council and People's Committee at all levels of local government has not changed much. Therefore, the delegates wondered whether the draft Law should be considered a comprehensive amendment or just an amendment and supplement to a number of articles of the Law on Organization of Local Government.

Regarding the specific content, regarding the tasks and powers of the People's Councils at the district and commune levels, the draft Law stipulates that they have the authority to decide on measures, mechanisms, and policies for socio-economic development at the district and commune levels. However, the draft Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents (amended) submitted to this session is proposing to only allow the People's Councils at the district level to issue resolutions to regulate issues assigned by laws and resolutions of the National Assembly or to implement decentralization to local authorities and lower-level State agencies; at the same time, removing the authority to issue legal documents of the People's Councils at the commune level.

Pointing out the inconsistencies between the two laws being submitted to the National Assembly for amendment, delegate Thai Thi An Chung suggested re-studying them in the Law on Organization of Local Government (amended) or in the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents (amended) to ensure compatibility.

The delegate of Nghe An delegation also proposed to add a provision allowing the appointment of an executive from among the Standing Committee members of the People's Council at all levels in case of vacancy of both the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the People's Council at the provincial, district and communal levels instead of appointing an executive from among the People's Council delegates as in the draft Law. Because the current structure of the People's Council at all levels has a Chairman, Vice Chairmen and Standing Committee members who are Heads of the People's Council committees.

Regarding the regulations on dismissal of people holding positions elected by the People's Council, based on practical experience, Ms. Thai Thi An Chung proposed that there should be regulations that people holding positions elected by the People's Council who transfer their jobs out of the locality or retire will be automatically dismissed; instead of regulating that the People's Council must still carry out the dismissal procedure as it is now, because this is just a formality.

Mr. Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Central Policy and Strategy Committee, National Assembly Delegate of Nghe An expressed his high agreement with the assessment of delegate Thai Thi An Chung on the content of the draft Law on Organization of Local Government (amended).

Accordingly, compared to the first draft Law, the draft submitted to the National Assembly at this session is almost unchanged from the content of the current Law, only supplementing and amending a number of articles related to decentralization and delegation of powers, clarifying a number of contents of the provisions.

Therefore, delegate Thai Thanh Quy suggested that we should only mention amending and supplementing one article of the Law on Organization of Local Government; instead of amending the whole thing. When the time is ripe to carry out a revolution in the organization of the local government apparatus, such as reducing the current 4 levels to 3 levels, then fundamentally amending this law will be more appropriate.

Mr. Tran Nhat Minh - full-time delegate of Nghe An delegation raised some opinions on legislative techniques of the Law on Organization of Local Government (amended), especially requesting the drafting agency to clarify why there is no scope of adjustment in the draft Law.

He also suggested that the Law should specify the structure of specific committees of the People's Council in relation to the areas of responsibility; otherwise, there should be a provision assigning the National Assembly Standing Committee to specify; instead of just generally stipulating "The Committee of the People's Council is a specialized agency of the People's Council" and only assigning "the National Assembly Standing Committee to prescribe the framework of the number of Committees and members of the Committees of the People's Council" as in the draft Law to avoid causing difficulties for localities in the implementation process.

In addition, delegate Tran Nhat Minh also proposed to have regulations to give more authority to the Standing Committee of the People's Council to consider and decide to remove the People's Council delegates from their duties and report to the People's Council at the nearest session during the time the People's Council is not in session in the case that the delegate no longer works at the agency, organization, or enterprise in the administrative unit of which he/she is a delegate and does not reside in the administrative unit of which he/she is a delegate.

There is a control mechanism to avoid power corruption when decentralization is done.

Mr. Hoang Minh Hieu - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Law Committee suggested that there should be more specific consideration and review so that when implementing, it will create favorable conditions, especially for local authorities in organizing implementation; at the same time, he also said that once the Government decentralizes in an equal form to all 63 provinces and centrally-run cities, it becomes decentralization, in this case it is necessary to consider carrying out procedures to amend related laws.

Regarding the content of the Law on Government Organization (amended), the delegate of Nghe An delegation proposed to have a regulation that the decentralizing person must be responsible for promulgating legal documents issued by the decentralized person.

Regarding the provisions in the draft Law on Organization of Local Government (amended), it is stipulated: In case decentralization leads to the need to change the order, procedures, and authority to perform the decentralized tasks and powers currently prescribed in legal documents, the decentralized agencies, organizations, and individuals shall request the Provincial People's Committee to consider and issue documents adjusting the order, procedures, and authority of relevant agencies to perform the decentralized tasks and powers to ensure the requirements for administrative procedure reform, not to prescribe additional components of the dossier, not to increase the requirements, conditions, and time for handling the currently applied procedures".

Regarding the above content, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu suggested that it is necessary to clarify the proposed scope of amendments and the time for exercising this authority; to avoid the case where the decentralized agency in the local government can request the Provincial People's Committee to amend related documents, even those of the Government and the National Assembly.

Regarding the above two draft laws, Major General Tran Duc Thuan - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Defense and Security Committee supports increasing decentralization and delegation of power, but it also needs to be associated with a mechanism for control; ensuring the decentralization and delegation of power mechanism achieves the best efficiency, avoiding power degeneration; at the same time, associated with simplifying administrative procedures and modernizing public administration.

Regarding the draft Resolution of the National Assembly regulating the handling of a number of issues related to the reorganization of the State apparatus, Major General Tran Duc Thuan - National Assembly Delegate of Nghe An delegation also mentioned a number of contents, in particular, he requested the drafting agency to continue reviewing so that the scope of the Resolution can cover all issues arising when reorganizing the apparatus.