VietNamNet Bridge - "A ruling party should accept competition or accept the self-discipline to become more mature, cleaner and stronger. People will help eliminate elements of ideological recession, degeneracy and corruption," said former Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Office Tran Quoc Thuan.

 

Lawyer Nguyen Huu Danh.

On February 1, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Legal and Democratic Advisory Council of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee held a consultation workshop to collect comments on the draft amendments to the 1992 Constitution.

Many suggestions and recommendations of intellectuals and scholars focused on Article 4.

Paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the draft marks: "The Vietnamese Communist Party, the vanguard of the working class, at the same time as the vanguard of the working people and of the people of Vietnam, the faithful representative of the interests of the working class, the working people and the whole nation, taking the Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thought as the foundation of thought, is the leading force of the State and society."

Mr. Pham Vinh Thai, a member of the Legal and Democratic Advisory Council, said that in principles, in the state of law of the people, by the people, for the people, the people are the subject of power. The leadership role of the State and the society of the Party, is in nature, entrusted by the people. That mandate can be recognized in the Constitution through constitutional procedures.

"In that spirit, the provision on the Party in the Constitution should not be verbatim as the Party Charter and put into this article the contents that are not subject to direct adjustment of the Constitution and the law. These contents are subject to the Party Charter and the internal regulations of the Party," Thai said.

According to him, to show the people's right of supervision (Paragraph 2 of Article 4 of the draft), it is necessary to develop the law of the Party. "This issue is transparency and necessary for both the country and the Party. The fact has proved that, if merely relying on internal monitoring, allowing itself to stand outside the supervision of the people and the law, the risk of recession is greater for the party and the party will no longer hold the leadership role," Thai explained.

Lawyer Nguyen Huu Danh said: "We cannot say the Party is the leading force of the State and society if people do not empower the Party members to direct the State through democratic elections in accordance with Article 6 of the draft Constitution," the lawyer said.

Lawyer Tran Quoc Thuan, former Deputy Director of the Office of the National Assembly, said that the draft has additional progress when it is added with human rights. However, according to him, the draft still reflects the imposition of the will, the old conception of the Constitution, and it is more interested in the stability of the regime rather than the freedom and happiness of the people.

According to Thuan, a ruling party should accept competition, which is to accept the self-discipline to become more mature, cleaner and stronger. “People will help remove the element of ideological recession, degeneracy and corruption," he said.

Ta Lam