Overcoming the situation of shifting responsibility to the Prime Minister

Continuing the working program, on the morning of September 30, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on Government Organization (amended). Basically, opinions highly appreciated the Government's preparation, especially in concretizing new points in the 2013 Constitution. However, the National Assembly Standing Committee also requested the Drafting Committee to continue researching and strengthening before submitting to the National Assembly at the next session.

Authority must go hand in hand with responsibility.

The Law Committee of the National Assembly - the agency examining the draft law - believes that the contents expressed in the draft Law basically still inherit the approach in the current Law but have not yet proposed new, truly breakthrough contents to be able to implement the goals and viewpoints set out in the Government's Submission, meeting the new requirements on the new functions, tasks and powers of the Government in the current period and in the future.

Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Thai Binh presents the Draft Law on Government Organization Amendment

Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee - Mr. Phan Trung Ly proposed to review the content of the draft Law closely following the above objectives and viewpoints to fully and accurately institutionalize the provisions and spirit of the Constitution on the division and coordination in the implementation of state power, on the functions and tasks of the Government as the highest state administrative body, exercising executive power and being the executive body of the National Assembly.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung proposed clarifying the role of the Government in protecting the Constitution as well as specifying responsibilities: “With authority comes responsibility. We talk about rights but no responsibility is mentioned. Responsibility to implement the Constitution, but if it is not implemented well, will we be responsible, and to whom? The relationship with the President is only one-sided.”

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Huynh Ngoc Son also said that the draft Law clearly states the powers but the responsibilities of the Government, the Prime Minister, and Deputy Prime Ministers are not clear; at the same time, he raised the question "Is there a resignation mechanism? The press has mentioned it a lot, is it mentioned now in the renovation?".

Explaining at the meeting, Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Thai Binh said that the Government's responsibility to protect and implement the Constitution is a content that the Drafting Committee pays close attention to. The draft law also shows the Government's submission to the National Assembly and the National Assembly Standing Committee for promulgation of laws and ordinances; the function of assessing the constitutionality and legality of draft laws, ordinances, and legal documents issued by the Government. The Government established a council to assess and evaluate the impact of promulgating laws, ordinances, and decrees; and inspect the implementation of legal documents to ensure that they are not contrary to the Constitution. In response to the opinions of the National Assembly Standing Committee, the Drafting Committee will continue to study to demonstrate more clearly.

Specifically decentralize to clarify responsibilities

Chairman Phan Trung Ly also said that the provisions on the duties and powers of the Prime Minister in the draft Law are not commensurate with the position and role of the Prime Minister both as the head of the Government and as a constitutional institution with its own authority. Therefore, the Committee proposed to develop a Chapter regulating: the legal status of the Prime Minister; the mechanism for electing the Prime Minister; the authority of the Prime Minister; the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Government and with other members of the Government.

In addition, the Draft has not specified the responsibility of the Prime Minister to "Implement the reporting regime to the People through the mass media on important issues under the authority of the Government and the Prime Minister" as stipulated in the Constitution. At the same time, these regulations must overcome the situation of concentrating responsibility on the Prime Minister.

The Law Committee also proposed to clarify whether the state management role belongs to the Ministry, the ministerial-level agency or the Minister, the Head of the ministerial-level agency, so that there is a basis to clearly determine the role of individuals or groups, and also to determine the authority and clearly define the responsibilities in state management of the assigned sectors and fields. In addition, there is a proposal to add regulations on the number of Deputy Ministers and Deputy Heads of ministerial-level agencies.

Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Nguyen Van Hien and Chairman of the Committee on Social Affairs Truong Thi Mai suggested that it is necessary to focus on clarifying both theory and practice to specify: What is the highest state administrative agency? At what points does executive power exercise? As an executive agency of the National Assembly, how is enforcement calculated?

Mr. Nguyen Van Hien also said that the division of power between the Government, the Prime Minister, and the Ministers has not been clearly demonstrated: “The authority must be clear, what the Government does, what the Prime Minister and Minister do. Apart from collective consultation, the Minister must take responsibility. We must define specialization, not just the Deputy Minister helping out and putting the responsibility on the Minister.”

Considering that there has been no breakthrough in overcoming the problems in this Law, even though some provisions of the law reflect the original text of the Constitution but have not been specified, Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Phung Quoc Hien emphasized: 'We must set out principles and standards for establishing ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and agencies directly under the Government. The draft law is written very simply, not reflecting the requirements set forth.

The local government organization model has not been clarified.

Commenting on the Law on Organization of Local Government, on the afternoon of September 30, the National Assembly Standing Committee said that the promulgation of this Law is not only to overcome the shortcomings and problems of the Law on Organization of People's Councils (HDND) and People's Committees (UBND) after 11 years of implementation, but also to concretize new provisions of the Constitution and the Party's guidelines and policies on innovation of organization and operation of local governments to enhance autonomy, self-responsibility and effectiveness and efficiency of management of local governments.

Emphasizing that the regulation of local government organization model is an important issue of the country, many opinions say that the draft Law has not made it clear. This also leads to related regulations being unclear and unconvincing.

National Assembly Standing Committee meeting on the afternoon of September 30

According to the Report presented by Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Thai Binh, specifying the provisions of the Constitution, the draft Law presents two options on the model of local government organization.

Option 1 stipulates that People's Councils and People's Committees are organized in administrative units of provinces, centrally run cities, districts, towns, provincial cities, equivalent administrative units of centrally run cities, communes and towns; in districts and wards, People's Committees are organized without People's Councils, the functions of representation, supervision and decision-making on local issues are undertaken by People's Councils of cities and towns.

Option 2 is that People's Councils and People's Committees are organized in administrative units of provinces, centrally run cities, districts, towns, provincial cities, equivalent administrative units of centrally run cities, communes, wards and towns.

Chairman of the Law Committee Phan Trung Ly emphasized that the model of local government organization is an important issue and must be discussed and carefully considered by the National Assembly based on the summary of the implementation of the Party's policy on piloting a number of contents on urban government organization and the results of the summary of the implementation of Resolution 26 of the National Assembly, meeting the requirements of organizing local government in accordance with the characteristics of rural, urban, island, special administrative-economic units and the principle of delimiting authority between the central and local levels and between local government levels.

The Law Committee approved the submission of two options to the National Assembly on local government organization models, but requested that the advantages and disadvantages of each option be clearly stated.

In addition, the Law Committee proposed that, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Law on Organization of Local Government needs to clarify the concepts of "local government" and "local government level", in order to determine in which types of administrative units "local government level" (including People's Council and People's Committee) is organized and in which administrative units local government level is not organized.

In case of organizing “local government level” including People’s Council and People’s Committee at administrative units, the draft Law must clarify the relationship between People’s Council and People’s Committee at the same level to demonstrate the connection and unity between these agencies in a new form of local government level. In case of not organizing government level at administrative units such as districts and wards, the draft Law must clarify the name of the administrative agency and the relationship of this agency with the local government at higher levels.

The opinion of the examining agency also suggested that it is necessary to specify the basic commonalities and differences in the nature and characteristics of rural, urban and island areas to determine the tasks and powers of local authorities in these administrative units, from which to build a model of local government organization suitable to the characteristics of rural, urban and island areas. According to Mr. Phan Trung Ly, the Report has not clarified these characteristics, and at the same time has not thoroughly explained why People's Councils are not organized in districts and wards while other equivalent administrative units with urban characteristics such as towns, provincial cities, equivalent administrative units of centrally run cities and towns still organize People's Councils?

The Law Committee also believes that the Draft Law still calls the administrative agency in places where there is no People's Council as the People's Committee, which is the representative agency of the People's Committee at the higher level directly in the locality, responsible to the administrative agency at the higher level (Clause 2, Article 9, Option 1), which will lead to a situation where, although they are both called the People's Committee, the position, nature, and authority of the People's Committee in places where there is a People's Council and places where there is no People's Council are clearly different (the representative agency of the People's Committee at the higher level, appointed or dismissed by the People's Committee, while the People's Committee at the local government level is elected by the People's Council at the same level - Article 114 of the Constitution).

Not only that, the People's Committee in the place where the People's Council is organized must be responsible to the People's Council of the same level and the higher-level state administrative agency, while the People's Committee in the place where the People's Council is not organized must only be responsible to the higher-level administrative agency. According to the Law Committee, this may cause many difficulties and complications in the understanding and regulation of the tasks and powers of the People's Committee in other legal documents (both current and upcoming documents).

According to Vice President Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, some new points in the Constitution have not been clearly institutionalized in this law; at the same time, she suggested that the Drafting Committee review to ensure consistency in the legal system, especially organizational laws.

Determining the model of local government is very important because it determines the assignment of authority. Therefore, the Vice President of the National Assembly requested that the Report must state the advantages and disadvantages, advantages and difficulties to submit to the National Assembly for comments.

Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Nguyen Kim Khoa raised the issue that the Constitution stipulates that citizens are equal in rights and obligations. Does having places where People's Councils are organized and places where they are not organized violate this right?

Speaking on this content, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung emphasized that, according to Article 111 of the Constitution, local governments are organized in administrative units of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; local government levels include People's Councils and People's Committees organized in accordance with the characteristics of rural areas, urban areas, islands, and special administrative-economic units as prescribed by law. Therefore, this Law must be institutionalized.

Emphasizing the time to complete the draft law, the National Assembly Chairman requested the Drafting Committee to absorb the opinions of the National Assembly Standing Committee, clarify further to submit to the National Assembly for discussion, and then complete the Central report.

According to VOV