VietNamNet Bridge – The World Bank in 2013 in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment carried out a program to assess Vietnam’s land governance indicators.

The program released a conclusion, which was not new: Vietnam was among the top countries for creation of laws, but at the bottom for enforcement of laws.

Vietnam is trying to bring the law to life, but it is difficult because real life was not considered carefully when the law was built.

As a result, a series of legal documents were changed shortly after they were ratified because they did not fit to reality. Most recently, the Law on Social Insurance was amended as soon as it was ratified by the National Assembly.

The Government and National Assembly have several times collected opinions of people on some important laws, for example the Constitution, the amended Land Law and the Civil Code.

However, this was not very effective because the opinions of people have not been made for all legal documents, only for a number of important laws.

Moreover, the opinions were mainly collected through workshops with experts and the meetings of people held by commune authorities. In fact, not all experts are close to real life and not all commune governments listen to the aspirations of the people.

The feeling of many people is that legal documents are released from air-conditioned offices according to subjective thinking of state officers, including documents "carefully" consulted by the people.

This is the main reason for the short life of legal documents in Vietnam. Before 2003, the Land Law was amended 2.5 years each then the 2003 Land Law was also edited twice before the 2013 Land Law. The Land Law 2013 took effect for over half of a year when it was found to be contrary to the Housing Act 2014.

A great opportunity to address the root has come: the National Assembly is considering adopting the amended Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents in the upcoming session. This is the original law to enact any legal document, only less importance than the Constitution.

The first matter considered is the collection of people’s opinion for legal documents can be regarded as a cross-cutting principle in the lawmaking process or not? This is easily seen as necessary. Since 1945, President Ho Chi Minh said: "all power belongs to the people", which means that the people have the right to decide the law, and the pillar infrastructure of the State of law.

Constitution 2013 turned this spirit into Article 28 "Citizens have the right to participate in management of the state and society, participate in discussions and make recommendations to government agencies on the issue of the local and national governments. The State facilitates the citizen’s participation in the management of state and society; publicity and transparency in receiving feedback, suggestions of citizens."

The second issue is the way to collect people’s opinion to ensure people have the opportunity to speak honestly, their comments to be sincerely listened to and absorbed.

The third issue is the responsibility for evaluating draft legal documents should be placed in the hands of which agencies? So far, it has been still in the hands of state agencies, the same as the subsidy period. Thus, the state agencies research and draft, they themselves evaluate and issue legal documents. This process lacks of objectivity.

This process should be changed, by having an independent law assessment council, including non-state organizations representing the interests of local communities. The council will indicate gaps in the drafts for the protection of the legitimate interests of the people and the state agencies.

The collection of real opinions of social organizations, people and the independent evaluation of the draft legal documents will take more cost and more time and requires more human resources.

The cost will be exchanged for legal documents that are more suitable to real life, more effective and with longer life expectancy.

Moreover, this is the process of implementing democracy, bringing high social sustainability. In general the benefits still outweighs the costs, so that task is necessary.

Looking at newly industrialized countries, the laws live for at least few decades and in developed countries, the laws of a few hundred years ago remain in effect today.

Solving all these problems rests on the amended Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents. This is the foundation for building a sustainable state of law, which belongs to the people, by the people and for the people.

Prof. Dang Hung Vo