Contribute to perfecting policies and laws

(Baonghean) - Over the past year, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations at all levels have made efforts to put Decision No. 217-QD/TW of the Politburo on the Regulations on social supervision and criticism into practice. Thereby contributing to the development and improvement of guidelines, policies and laws of Party committees and authorities at all levels in line with the reality of social life.

Choose the issue that people care about

With the motto of focusing on quality rather than quantity, the Nghi Loc Fatherland Front chose to supervise issues that voters had many concerns and recommendations. In 2014, in addition to the supervision content related to administrative reform and the settlement of complaints and denunciations of citizens in some commune-level units, it pointed out the existing limitations that need to be overcome such as the settlement of citizens' affairs at the one-stop department without an appointment letter; the monitoring and archiving of records of settlement of complaints and denunciations were not complete and scientific...

Monitoring the use of pesticides in fields in Anh Son.

The district Fatherland Front also monitors the law enforcement in temporary detention, temporary imprisonment and execution of criminal sentences at the district police. From there, it discovers and requests the unit to remedy the slow establishment and transfer of some suspended sentence and non-custodial reform files to the commune People's Committee and violations in temporary detention and temporary imprisonment regulations such as keeping subjects in the same cell in a case, putting detainees and temporary prisoners in the same cell...

Some localities monitor difficult and sensitive areas that people are interested in. For example, the Fatherland Front of Nghia Dan district monitors the implementation of state management work on mobilizing people's contributions to build infrastructure in some commune-level units; the Fatherland Front of Cua Lo town directly monitors 57% of subjects with a discrepancy in the percentage of disability between the total review and actual payment in 7 wards and communes. The Fatherland Front of Tan Ky district monitors the distribution of money, gifts, and rice to policy households, poor single households, and orphans; and the construction of houses for people with revolutionary contributions. In Vinh city alone, in 2014, the Fatherland Front of the city and wards and communes monitored 34 topics in various fields. These include administrative reform, public ethics of city officials, civil servants, and public employees; and monitoring food safety and hygiene, and school health at 36 schools at all levels, which were highly appreciated by the Party Committee, government, and people.

In 2014, the provincial Fatherland Front also established a delegation to monitor the implementation of pesticide management in Anh Son and Dien Chau districts. Through monitoring, the delegation discovered shortcomings and limitations in this field such as drug stores and agents without practice certificates, expired practice certificates, drug sales locations and storage not in accordance with regulations. After that, the Provincial People's Committee issued Document No. 8137/UBND - TN assigning the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to preside over and coordinate with relevant agencies to urgently inspect, review and take measures to rectify and overcome shortcomings and inadequacies; advise and propose to the Provincial People's Committee solutions to effectively direct and operate the management of pesticides in the province. The supervision of the general review of the implementation of preferential policies for people with revolutionary contributions was seriously implemented from the provincial to grassroots levels. Many issues arising after the review were completely resolved...

Mr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, Head of the Legal Democracy Committee (Provincial Fatherland Front) said: After one year of implementing Decision 217 of the Politburo, social supervision and criticism activities have gradually become routine and become the working regime of the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations according to their assigned duties and tasks. Thereby, it has contributed to promptly detecting errors and weaknesses; amending inappropriate regulations, inappropriate and incorrect contents; contributing to ensuring the correctness and conformity with the reality of social life of policies and guidelines. At the same time, promoting democracy, strengthening social consensus, ensuring the legitimate and legal interests of the people; effectively building and implementing the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, improving the leadership capacity and fighting strength of Party organizations, the effectiveness and efficiency of State management, and authorities at all levels...

To monitor and criticize into life

However, in the implementation process, the Fatherland Front at all levels cannot avoid confusion in choosing content and methods, mainly doing and learning from experience. Some localities have not yet developed and implemented plans for monitoring and criticism, or have implemented monitoring and criticism activities but have not gone into depth, especially at the commune level. There is still a phenomenon of monitoring and criticism in a formal, selective manner, following the will of leaders and competent persons... The reason is due to the limited capacity of the staff of the Fatherland Front and mass organizations; they have not been properly trained, especially at the district and grassroots levels. Many staff are not up to the task, their expertise is not high; their ability to perceive, analyze problems, evaluate and conclude is still inadequate, while many areas of independent monitoring and thematic monitoring require deep expertise and experts.

According to Mr. Dau Khac Than, Vice Chairman of the Nghi Loc District Fatherland Front Committee, the regulation that the Front and organizations that want to monitor must go through and have the consent of the Party Committee and the government is somewhat difficult; at the commune and ward levels, it is even more difficult because of the lack and weakness of human resources, lack of funding, and fear of conflict... Therefore, in 2014, Nghi Loc has not been able to implement monitoring according to Decision 217 at the commune level. Even in Quynh Luu - one of the units that is assessed to have implemented quite well, only 40% of the communes have implemented it, and the rest have to coordinate and integrate it into the activities of the People's Inspection Committee and the Community Investment Supervision Committee.

Another reason why the effectiveness of the Vietnam Fatherland Front's social supervision and criticism is not high is that the Party committees and authorities at the grassroots level in many places have not really focused on leadership and coordination with the Vietnam Fatherland Front in implementation; the coordination mechanism between the subject of supervision and criticism and the object of supervision and criticism is still unclear, lacking sanctions and related regulations.

According to Mr. Cao Van Toan, Vice Chairman of the Vinh City Fatherland Front Committee: “To carry out supervision and criticism according to Decision 217, in addition to requiring the Fatherland Front officials and socio-political organizations to constantly improve their professional qualifications, skills and working skills, the decisive factor is still the attention, direction, coordination and creation of favorable conditions in all aspects so that the Fatherland Front and organizations can confidently perform their tasks. For example, in Vinh City, despite financial difficulties, the city still balances the budget in the general operating fund of the front to support members of the advisory boards at the same level as unpaid district-level Fatherland Front committee members.

In addition, the disclosure and transparency of information on monitoring conclusions as well as the overcoming and correction of shortcomings after monitoring of the supervised subjects; the development of a system of mechanisms, the issuance of sanctions, and the completion of legal regulations so that the Vietnam Fatherland Front and mass organizations can effectively perform their monitoring and social criticism functions are also important conditions for Decision 217 of the Politburo to truly come into life and be effective.

Article and photos:Gia Huy