Law on Organization of Local Government: Converting the local government model into 2 levels

The Ministry of Home Affairs said that in order to implement the Party's policy on streamlining the organization and apparatus of the political system (no district-level organization, implementing a 2-level local government model), the Party Committee of the National Assembly is directing the amendment and supplementation of a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution with the scope of issues on the organization and apparatus of the political system, including amending and supplementing a number of articles of Chapter IX regulating local government, planning to abolish the district-level administrative unit (DVHC), and local government is only organized into 2 levels (including the provincial level and the level below the provincial level).

Accordingly, after the National Assembly reviews and approves the Resolution amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution, it will promptly amend and supplement the current Law on Organization of Local Government to ensure consistency with the provisions of the 2013 Constitution (after amendments and supplements) on local government.

In addition, the Law on Organization of Local Government 2025 (effective from March 1, 2025) has been comprehensively amended and supplemented to clearly define authority, promote decentralization, delegation of authority between central and local state agencies; between local government levels and overcome shortcomings, problems and limitations in the implementation of the Law on Organization of Local Government 2015.

However, because the provisions on administrative units and the local government organization model in the current Law on Organization of Local Government are designed at 3 levels (provincial, district and communal levels), it is necessary to amend and supplement the provisions of the Law on Organization of Local Government to implement the 2-level local government model and the issues arising when converting from the 3-level local government model to the 2-level local government model are urgent in order to create a legal corridor for agencies and organizations in the state apparatus to operate according to the 2-level local government model, ensuring streamlining, compactness, strength, efficiency, effectiveness, and efficiency, meeting the new development requirements of the country.

The objective of developing the Law on Organization of Local Government (amended) is to fundamentally amend the regulations on organization and operation of local governments to fully institutionalize the policies and orientations in the Party's documents and resolutions, the conclusions of the Politburo and the Secretariat, and to concretize the provisions of the Constitution (after amendment) to convert the local government organization model from the current 3 levels (provincial, district and communal levels) to 2 levels (provincial and grassroots levels), ensuring a streamlined, efficient, effective, and unified apparatus and the consistency and continuity of the state administration from the central to grassroots levels.

Layout of the draft Law on Organization and Local Government (amended)

The draft Law consists of 7 chapters and 49 articles (1 article less than Law No. 65/2025/QH15, of which: 9 articles remain, 3 articles are removed (related to the tasks and powers of district-level local authorities); 2 new articles are added (due to separating the regulations on tasks and powers of the Provincial People's Council from the centrally-run city and of the commune from the ward to more specifically regulate the tasks and powers of the People's Council at administrative units in each field); 35 articles are amended and supplemented to conform to the conversion of the local government organization model from 3 levels (provincial, district and commune levels) to 2 levels (provincial and grassroots levels), specifically as follows:

Chapter I:General provisions, including 7 articles (from Article 1 to Article 7).

Chapter II:Organization of administrative units, establishment, dissolution, merger, division of administrative units, adjustment of administrative boundaries and renaming of administrative units includes 3 articles (from Article 8 to Article 10).

Chapter III:Demarcation of authority between local authorities at all levels, including 4 articles (from Article 11 to Article 14).

Chapter IV:Duties and powers of local authorities, including 11 articles (from Article 15 to Article 25).

Chapter V:Organization and operation of local government, including 14 articles (from Article 26 to Article 39).

Chapter VI:Organization of local government in case of change of administrative unit boundaries and other special cases, including 7 articles (from Article 40 to Article 46).

Chapter VII:Implementation provisions, including 3 articles (from Article 47 to Article 49).