Which senior leaders will be protected at home?

On the morning of August 15, the National Assembly Standing Committee held its second meeting to give opinions on the draft Law on Guards. This draft law is designed to replace the current Ordinance on Guards.

Senior Lieutenant General To Lam, Minister of Public Security (the agency in charge of drafting the Law on Guards) said that the draft Law stipulates that the subjects to be guarded include: General Secretary; President; Prime Minister; Chairman of the National Assembly; former General Secretary, former President, former Prime Minister, former Chairman of the National Assembly; Politburo members; Secretary of the Party Central Committee; Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, and Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuracy. Compared to the current Ordinance on Guards, the draft adds the subjects to be guarded to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, and Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuracy.

Police force protects the target.

Also according to the draft law, the following security measures and regimes will apply to the General Secretary, President, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the National Assembly:

One is access protection.

Second is to arrange armed guards to patrol and guard at residences and workplaces.

Third is to check the security and safety of equipment, items, vehicles, other agents, and test food and drinks before use.

Fourth is to increase protection forces and means when necessary.

Fifth, when using a car, a police escort vehicle is arranged. When traveling domestically or internationally by train, a private car is arranged. When traveling by plane, a private cabin or plane is used. When traveling by ship, a private ship or boat with escort and protection is used.

Sixth, when going on business trips to localities in the country or going on business trips abroad, forces are arranged to go ahead to grasp the situation, survey, build and deploy protection plans.

Seven are other professional measures as prescribed by the Law on People's Public Security and the Law on National Security.

Senior Lieutenant General To Lam added: Current law stipulates that former General Secretaries, former Presidents, former Prime Ministers, and former National Assembly Chairmen are entitled to access protection measures, the arrangement of armed guards to patrol and guard their residences, and other measures when necessary.

"However, in reality, when no longer in office, the residence of the above comrades is often not fixed, some comrades live with their children or return to their hometowns, so it is very difficult to apply armed patrol and guard measures at their residence. On the other hand, through consulting the security laws of some countries in the world such as Russia and South Korea, armed patrol and guard measures at their residence are not applied in the above case. Therefore, the draft law only stipulates that these comrades are allowed to apply access protection measures and other measures when necessary, but does not stipulate the application of armed patrol and guard measures at their residence for these comrades," said Senior Lieutenant General To Lam.

Regarding the expansion of the guard subjects, according to Senior Lieutenant General Vo Trong Viet - Chairman of the National Assembly's Defense and Security Committee (the agency examining the draft Law on Guards): The majority of opinions of the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee agreed to keep the guard subjects as stipulated in the current ordinance. Because when adding the subjects of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, and Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuracy, a number of other ministerial positions such as the Minister of National Defense and the Minister of Public Security also have important positions and influence and must be added, thus increasing the staffing, structure, and organization of the guard force and causing international public opinion to misunderstand that because security and order in Vietnam are complicated, the guard subjects must be expanded.

Commenting on this issue, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said that the subjects of protection should not be expanded, because in reality, the subjects proposed for expansion are all part of the Politburo and Secretariat, which means they are already subjects of protection.

According to Dan Viet