The National Assembly Standing Committee gives opinions on the Draft Civil Code - amendments

On the morning of September 22, the 31st Session of the 13th National Assembly Standing Committee held its first working session, giving opinions on the Draft Civil Code (amended) - the largest law in the current legal system, regulating a large field of social relations in civil exchanges.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung chaired and delivered the opening speech at the 31st session of the National Assembly Standing Committee. Photo: VNA

This Code is also the legal foundation for the legal system regulating civil, marriage and family, business, trade and labor relations.

Before starting the working session, in his opening speech, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung asked members of the National Assembly Standing Committee to give detailed opinions and carefully review the contents of the draft laws in the meeting agenda in order to prepare well the drafts to be submitted to the upcoming 8th session of the National Assembly.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung said the upcoming 8th session will be the longest session ever in the 13th National Assembly's tenure with a large volume of law and ordinance projects to implement the Constitution.

Regarding the questioning program of two Ministers and Heads of sectors at the 31st session: Natural Resources and Environment, Governor of the State Bank, Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung emphasized that the content of the questioning at this session focuses on the results of the implementation of the tasks of the Ministers and Heads of sectors since the previous questioning session; at the same time, discussing the key tasks for these two areas from now until the end of the term.

Presenting the Draft Civil Code (amended) at the working session, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated that after more than 8 years of implementation, the Civil Code has basically had a positive impact on the country's socio-economic development as well as on the completion of the legal system. However, this code also revealed a number of shortcomings and problems that need to be amended to better suit the requirements of building a rule-of-law state.

This amendment and supplement aims to perfect the Civil Code to truly become the common law of the legal system regulating social relations formed according to the principles of freedom, voluntariness, equality and self-responsibility between participating parties, better recognizing and protecting the rights of individuals and organizations in civil relations, contributing to perfecting the socialist-oriented market economic institution, stabilizing the legal environment for socio-economic development after the Constitution has been amended.

Notably, due to the importance of the project, the draft Civil Code (amended) is expected to be organized to collect opinions from relevant agencies, organizations, civil law experts and people and will be commented on in 3 sessions of the National Assembly.

The Draft Civil Code has a total of 672 articles, keeping 263 articles, amending 297 articles, adding 126 articles, and abolishing 149 articles compared to the current Code.

In the report examining this project, regarding the scope of amending this law, the National Assembly's Law Committee stated that although the Land Law has provisions on land use rights, it only focuses on regulating the rights and obligations of land users, including the rights to convert, transfer, lease, inherit, mortgage, and contribute capital using land use rights, without specific regulations on the forms of transferring land use rights.

Currently, most specialized laws have provisions on specialized contracts.

It is unreasonable that the Civil Code and the Land Law do not stipulate forms of land use rights transfer but leave it to the Government to stipulate. The Law Committee proposes to retain some contents of basic principles of civil relations on land, considering the transfer of land use rights as a special type of civil transaction, and specific issues will be regulated by specialized laws.

Regarding intellectual property rights and technology transfer, which are also a type of property rights, the Law Committee agrees that general provisions on property, including intellectual property rights and technology transfer, are in principle stipulated in this Code, and specific contents will be regulated by specialized laws.

Giving comments at the working session, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung suggested that the National Assembly Standing Committee thoroughly discuss the scope of the draft Law, ensuring the principle of "civil matters depend on both parties."

"The contents that have been amended in the Constitution must also be amended in the Civil Code; in which, attention must be paid to further expanding the democratic rights of the people. The amended contents must be ensured on the basis of inheriting the quintessence of the old Civil Code combined with the actual process of law enforcement and closely following the spirit of the Constitution," emphasized National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung.

Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee also approved the plan to collect opinions from relevant agencies, organizations, civil law experts and people to contribute to the Civil Code (amended) project to ensure it is in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution.

Amendments to the contents of the Civil Code need to be carefully calculated, because this is a fundamental law that affects many other specialized laws. Amendments to the Civil Code must create favorable conditions for socio-economic development in the direction of a market economy, which is the foundation for promoting and forming civil society entities.

The National Assembly Standing Committee also proposed to more specifically define the scope of the project; to institutionalize in a specific and detailed manner the contents on personal rights stipulated in the Constitution.

In the afternoon, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on promulgation of legal documents.

According to Vietnam+