Ms. Le Thi Nga presented a report at the conference.

Presenting a report explaining, accepting and adjusting a number of major issues with different opinions on the draft revised law on anti-corruption of the National Assembly Standing Committee (NASC), Ms. Le Thi Nga, Chairwoman of the NA Judicial Committee, said that accepting the opinions of NA deputies, the NASC proposed to maintain the regulation on expanding the scope of subjects obliged to declare assets as in the draft submitted at the 5th session, while adding subjects declaring for the first time, including military officers and police officers.

Accordingly, Article 35 of the draft law stipulates 4 subjects that must declare assets, including: cadres, civil servants; people's army officers, people's police officers; people holding the position of deputy head of department and equivalent or higher in public service units, state-owned enterprises, people appointed as representatives of state capital, people holding management positions from deputy head of department and higher in state-owned enterprises; candidates for National Assembly deputies, People's Council deputies.

Must declare assetsof parents, adult child?

Commenting on the declaration, Deputy Dinh Duy Vuot (Gia Lai) said that although the draft expands the subjects required to declare, in terms of the declaration obligation, the draft only requires declaration of assets and income of oneself, spouse and minor children, which is too narrow. Mr. Vuot suggested that the declaration should be expanded to include adult children, parents and siblings of officials. According to him, in practice, in many localities, people know that parents and grandparents of officials suddenly own many projects, many assets worth tens of billions, mansions, luxury cars; many young masters and ladies still have "huge" projects despite public opinion, even though they are very young.

Sharing the same view, Deputy Mai Sy Dien (Thanh Hoa) said that the regulation on declaration obligation is a loophole in the current anti-corruption law.

However, some deputies disagreed with the proposal to extend the obligation to declare assets to parents and adult children, because it is not feasible and not in accordance with the provisions of the law. Deputy Nguyen Tien Sinh (Hoa Binh) raised the issue: If the declaration is made for the first time, will the declaration be made in the following years? If parents are in the countryside and children are on business trips, how will we know if their assets have increased or decreased? In particular, if the declaration is found to be dishonest, will the court be able to recover the assets of these people because they are citizens' assets?

Government Inspector General Le Minh Khai also said that the proposal to expand the declaration obligation to parents, siblings and adult children with the aim of preventing asset transfers to these subjects is good, but implementation is very difficult. Mr. Khai calculated that with the current number of people required to declare being more than 1.1 million, if it were expanded to these subjects, the number would increase 7 times.

Proposal for court to decide on unexplained assets

Another issue that many National Assembly members are concerned about is the solution to handle assets and additional income that the person who is obliged to declare cannot reasonably explain the origin of. According to the report presented by Ms. Nga, after receiving the opinions of National Assembly members, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposed two options for the National Assembly to comment on. Specifically, in addition to the option of collecting personal income tax, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposed an additional option of considering and resolving in court. Many National Assembly members expressed their agreement with the option of considering in court, but some expressed concerns about its feasibility.

Meanwhile, Deputy To Van Tam (Kon Tum) raised the issue: in the case of assets of unknown origin that are concluded by the court to have unreasonable explanations and confiscated, is the behavior of the officials who obtained the assets considered corruption? "Should it be that after recovering the assets, the court can transfer the agencies to inspect and check the formation process. If there are signs of corruption, transfer to the investigation agency," Mr. Tam proposed.