The National Assembly delegation of Nghe An province collected comments on the Draft Law on Archives (amended)

On the morning of October 18, the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province held a conference to collect comments on the Draft Law on Archives (amended). Comrades: Thai Thi An Chung - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation; Tran Nhat Minh - Full-time National Assembly Delegate co-chaired the conference.

The Law on Archives was passed by the 13th National Assembly, 2nd session on November 11, 2011 (effective from July 1, 2012). After more than 10 years of implementation, in addition to the results achieved, the 2011 Law on Archives has revealed shortcomings and limitations, some provisions are no longer suitable to the practical situation, especially with the Party and State's policies and guidelines on promoting the application of information technology (including the field of archives) to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of State management.

The Draft Law on Archives (amended) was developed to institutionalize the Party's policy at the 13th National Congress of Delegates on the legal system promoting innovation, creativity, digital transformation and developing products and services in the field of archives to arouse the aspiration for a prosperous and happy country, promote cultural values ​​and the strength of the Vietnamese people in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland and international integration.

Accordingly, the Draft Law on Archives (amended) consists of 9 chapters and 68 articles (an increase of 2 chapters and 26 articles compared to the 2011 Law on Archives).

At the conference, delegates focused on discussing 8 major groups of issues, including: Management of archival documents and archival document databases; General archival operations; Archival of electronic documents and digital documents; Promoting the value of archival documents; Private archival activities; Archival service activities; Archival management; Implementation provisions.

A representative of the Department of Culture and Sports of Nghe An province said that the law needs to have specific guidelines and bases so that documents of individuals, clans, villages, and ancient communes currently stored among the people can be recorded as heritage documents at the district, city, province, and national levels, thereby helping to better manage and preserve them.

Some opinions suggested that the law drafting committee should add regulations on private archival services. Accordingly, delegates said that the State should pay attention, have management policies and create conditions for private archival activities to develop. Currently, people store many valuable and rare documents, especially documents on cultural heritage. If this content is well managed and implemented, private archival documents and archival activities will contribute to social stability, provide information for social management activities and serve historical research.

In addition, there are opinions that the deadline for submitting documents to historical archives should be adjusted. Accordingly, for paper archives, the maximum period of 10 years is too long, and should be reduced to 5 years to ensure that documents are not lost.

Regarding Chapter IV (Storing electronic and digital documents), delegates suggested that content on online archives should be added to facilitate public access and research of documents. In addition, delegates also suggested clarifying and supplementing some prohibited acts and loose provisions in the draft.

Concluding the conference, Comrade Thai Thi An Chung - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation affirmed that the opinions discussed at the conference were all valid. Based on the contents discussed at the conference, the Provincial National Assembly Delegation will receive and synthesize all comments to complete the Draft Law on Archives (amended).