The National Assembly discussed amendments and supplements to the Constitution and a number of draft laws.

Responding to the requirements of organizational restructuring in the new period

Regarding the draft Resolution amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution, delegates basically agreed with the general view that this amendment is necessary, but should only focus on truly urgent contents, in order to meet the requirements of restructuring the apparatus in the new period.

Going into specific contents, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu - Standing member of the Law Committee of the National Assembly, National Assembly delegate of Nghe An province, expressed his opinion that about 1 Article 9 should be kept as it is, because it does not affect the organizational structure of the Fatherland Front, which we need to rearrange in the near future.

In Clause 2, Article 9, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu said that the unified action of socio-political organizations under the leadership of the Vietnam Fatherland Front is not in accordance with the organizational structure. Because when we talk about the Front, there are already these socio-political agencies and organizations. Delegate Hoang Minh Hieu proposed to retain the word in the current 2013 Constitution, which is unified action within the Vietnam Fatherland Front.

Regarding Article 10 of the draft on amending and supplementing regulations on Vietnam Trade Unions, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu expressed concern and consideration about adding the task of the Trade Union: "To be the representative of workers at the national level in labor relations and international relations with trade unions". Because when we talk about Vietnam Trade Unions, we are talking about trade unions at many different levels.

Regarding the determination of administrative units below provinces and centrally run cities and the procedures for establishing, dissolving, merging, dividing administrative units, and adjusting administrative unit boundaries as prescribed by the National Assembly in Clause 3, Article 110 of the Constitution, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu said that the regulation removes the right of the people to contribute opinions related to the arrangement of administrative units. Therefore, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu proposed to retain the people's right to give opinions on the establishment and dissolution of administrative units in the provisions of the Constitution.

Decentralization, strong local authority

Regarding the Law on Organization of Local Government, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Nghe An province, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province expressed her opinion on removing the content of inviting heads of local socio-political organizations to attend sessions of the People's Council and meetings of the People's Committee at the same level when discussing related issues in Clause 2, Article 7 of the draft Law on Organization of Local Government.

In the Draft Resolution on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution, it is stated that local government organizations are directly under the Fatherland Front but still have relative independence and operate according to their own regulations. Along with that, these socio-political organizations are also member organizations of the Fatherland Front Committee. However, in Clause 2, Article 7, we omitted this content but there is no explanation as to why this content was omitted.

Clause 2, Article 9 of the Resolution on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution stipulates: Vietnam Trade Union, Vietnam Farmers' Association, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, Women's Union, and Veterans Association are socio-political organizations under the Vietnam Fatherland Front, organized to operate in a unified manner within the Vietnam Fatherland Front and to consult, democratically, unify, and coordinate actions under the chairmanship of the Vietnam Fatherland Front.

According to this content, to comply with the amended constitution, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh proposed to keep Article 7 of the Law on Organization of Local Government. It is not necessary to remove that content, because there are contents related to socio-political organizations that require their presence and invite them to participate to directly give their opinions.

In addition, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh also expressed her opinion on the authority to decide on the establishment, dissolution, merger, separation of administrative units, boundaries and renaming of administrative units in Article 9 of the Law on Organization of Local Government. Delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh said that recently, we have been strongly decentralizing to localities, localities do, localities are responsible, so should we consider decentralizing the authority to adjust boundaries, establish, dissolve, merge, separate administrative units and rename administrative units at the commune level to the People's Council at the provincial level, and for the provincial level, decentralize to the National Assembly.

Agreeing with the opinion of delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh, delegate Hoang Minh Hieu suggested that the content should be reviewed: In case of necessity, the People's Committee and the Chairman of the People's Committee can directly direct or resolve issues under the duties of the lower level, when the lower level units do not have the capacity to perform in Article 11. According to delegate Hoang Minh Hieu, the principle of decentralization and delegation of power has clearly defined that the locality decides, the locality does, and the locality is responsible. Thus, in case the province sees that the commune level does not do or cannot perform the tasks, the province can have other ways to perform the tasks, and should not replace the commune level to perform the tasks.

In addition, delegate Tran Nhat Minh - Member of the Law Committee of the National Assembly, full-time delegate of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province, suggested that the drafting agency consider whether it is necessary for the People's Committees at the provincial and communal levels to develop long-term socio-economic development plans or not? And the draft law also does not clearly stipulate the time frame for defining what is a long-term and medium-term socio-economic development plan.

In practice, localities mainly develop socio-economic development plans according to the term of the congress and the annual socio-economic development plans are at the request of the Government and the Prime Minister. Therefore, to achieve consistency, delegate Tran Nhat Minh suggested that the drafting agency should clarify the concept of long-term and medium-term socio-economic development plans, and at the same time not stipulate that the People's Committees at the provincial and communal levels must issue long-term socio-economic development plans.

Regarding the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh agreed to remove Articles 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 on transfer, evaluation, and classification of cadre quality; evaluate cadres based on job positions, and remove the mindset of lifelong tenure. Delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh emphasized that this is a mindset that creates a bottleneck, slows down the development process, makes cadres and civil servants lack the will to progress, and do not self-train to improve their capacity.