The Nghe An National Assembly delegation discussed two draft laws.

Consider the timing for amending the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils.

Regarding the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils, Mr. Pham Phu Binh - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, a representative from Nghe An province, expressed his concerns that this draft Law will be presented at the 8th Session and is expected to be passed at the session held in May and June 2025.

Currently, Vietnam is focusing on implementing Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, 12th Congress, "Some issues on continuing to innovate and reorganize the organizational structure of the political system to be streamlined, effective, and efficient," which includes the task of reviewing and organizing the models of the National Assembly and Government agencies to be more streamlined and efficient.

"If the draft law is presented at this session and passed at the session in May/June 2025, will it be in line with the process of restructuring the National Assembly and the Government?", a representative asked, suggesting that the competent authorities consider whether to continue reviewing this draft law at the present time or to calculate a different timeframe to ensure synchronization with the ongoing and vigorous restructuring of the government apparatus.

Regarding the possibility of continuing to consider this draft law, the representative from Nghe An province stated that there are other tasks to consider, such as amending the Law on the Organization of the National Assembly and other laws related to the National Assembly's organizational model, to ensure compatibility.

Taking an example from the perspective of international cooperation and foreign affairs, Representative Pham Phu Binh stated that there are laws, international treaties, and international cooperation agreements that mention responsibilities and clearly name the agencies and committees of the National Assembly; therefore, when adjusting the organizational model, it is necessary to amend the relevant laws to ensure consistency in naming conventions…

In addition, regarding the content of the draft Law, Mr. Pham Phu Binh proposed adding provisions on coordinating the monitoring of the implementation of international treaties, international agreements, and Vietnam's commitments in bilateral and multilateral partnership agreements. This is a new point in the foreign relations between the Vietnamese National Assembly and the legislative bodies of other countries.

Regarding this draft law, Mr. Tran Nhat Minh - a full-time National Assembly representative from Nghe An province - offered his opinion on several amendments and additions concerning the review of the implementation of resolutions of the National Assembly and the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on questioning and specialized supervision through the form of questioning; cases where the National Assembly allows written answers to questions, and the National Assembly issues resolutions on questioning…

In particular, he raised many viewpoints and opinions aimed at innovating and improving the effectiveness of the National Assembly delegation's oversight activities at the local level, such as agreeing with the addition of the National Assembly delegation's role in "overseeing the implementation of the resolution of complaints, denunciations, and petitions from citizens."

In particular, drawing from local practice, delegate Tran Nhat Minh suggested studying regulations on the number of National Assembly deputies participating in specialized oversight delegations at the provincial level, in a manner consistent with local realities.

According to current law, a specialized monitoring delegation of the National Assembly must have at least 3 National Assembly deputies as members. However, in practice, this is often difficult to achieve at the local level. For example, the Nghe An delegation had 13 deputies at the beginning of the term (currently 12), of which 7 work locally, but even then, it is difficult to meet this requirement because most deputies hold multiple positions, leading to scheduling conflicts.

This issue was also mentioned in the summary report on the implementation of the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils, stating that "in some cases, due to personnel transfers or other reasons, only 1 to 2 National Assembly deputies remain in the locality, which is insufficient to conduct supervision," but the draft Law has not yet amended or supplemented this provision.

Furthermore, the current law does not clearly specify whether the requirement for three National Assembly deputies to participate in a thematic supervision team is based on the resolution establishing the team or whether the supervision actually requires three deputies.

These are two points that Representative Tran Nhat Minh proposed to amend and supplement several articles of the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils this time, which need clarification; at the same time, it is necessary to add regulations on the authority of the delegation of National Assembly deputies from provinces and cities to supervise the resolution of petitions from voters sent to National Assembly deputies that fall under the jurisdiction of the locality.

The authority to publish and distribute national standards is only assigned to a single point of contact.

Agreeing with the proposed amendments and additions to several articles of the Law on Standards and Technical Regulations, Ms. Thai Thi An Chung, Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Deputy Head of the Standing Delegation of the National Assembly of Nghe An Province, offered some comments on the draft content.

Regarding the national database system for technical standards and regulations, the draft Law stipulates: "...the construction, collection, updating, management, maintenance, exploitation, connection, sharing, and use of the national database system for technical standards and regulations must be carried out regularly, continuously, updated, maintained, and exploited in accordance with the law."

According to the delegates, this regulation is inappropriate because the users are not only state agencies, but also organizations and individuals who only access the data when needed. Requiring them to constantly update and maintain the data is inaccurate, therefore further research and consideration are needed.

Regarding the publication and distribution of national standards, the draft Law stipulates: "The Ministry of Science and Technology shall publish and distribute national standards within thirty days from the date the national standard is announced," and also allows "Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and government agencies to publish and distribute national standards that they have drafted."

According to Ms. Thai Thi An Chung, assigning the task of publishing and distributing national standards to both the Ministry of Science and Technology and other ministries and agencies would lead to a waste of resources and funds. Expressing the view that "one task should be assigned to only one agency," the representative suggested that the drafting agency reconsider and calculate further.

In addition, the delegate from Nghe An province also mentioned several issues that need stricter and more comprehensive regulations, such as clarifications of terminology: tasks related to the development, appraisal, publication, notification, and application of standards, etc.