Chương 9 Luật ban hành văn bản quy phạm pháp luật 2008: Hiệu lực của văn bản quy phạm pháp luật, nguyên tắc áp dụng, công khai văn bản quy phạm pháp luật

Chapter IX

VALIDITY OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS, PRINCIPLES OF APPLYING AND PUBLICLY ANNOUNCING LEGAL DOCUMENTS

Article 78. Effective dates of legal documents and publication of legal documents on the Official Gazette

1. Effective dates of legal documents shall be stipulated in the legal documents themselves but no sooner than 45 days since the dates of their promulgation or signatures.

In the event of legal documents stipulating measures to be taken in a state of emergency, and legal documents promulgated to promptly meeting requirements for natural disaster preparedness and outbreaks of epidemics, such legal documents may take effect on the dates of their promulgation or signatures on the condition that they are immediately posted on the website of the issuing agency and announced on the mass media; and posted on the Official Gazette of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (hereunder referred to as the Official Gazette) no later than 20 working days since the dates of their promulgation or signatures.

2. Legal documents must be published on the Official Gazette. Those legal documents fail to be published on the Official Gazette shall take no effect, except those legal documents that have contents classified as State secrets and those cases stipulated at Paragraph 2 Clause 1 of this Article.

The agency that issued the legal document shall have to send the legal document to the Official Gazette agency for it to be published on the Official Gazette no later than 2 working days.

The Official Gazette agency shall be responsible for publishing the full text of the legal document on the Official Gazette no later than 15 days from the date of receiving the legal document.

The legal document that is published on the Official Gazette shall be the official legal document which is as valid as the original legal document.

The Government shall establish detailed regulations on the Official Gazette.

Article 79. Retrospective effect of legal documents

1. Legal documents shall be designed to take retrospective effect only in cases of real need.

2. Legal documents shall not be designed to take retrospective effect in the following cases:

a) Imposing new liability upon those behaviors performed at a time in the past when no liability was imposed by the law.

b) Imposing heavier liability.

Article 80. Legal documents ceasing to take effect

1. Those legal documents whose implementation has been suspended shall cease to take effect until decisions to deal with them have been made by State competent agencies. If the State competent agencies issue decisions to abrogate them, such legal documents shall be rendered invalid. If they are not abrogated, they shall continue to take effect.

2. The date of ceasing to take effect, the date of continuing to take effect, and the date of being rendered invalid of legal documents shall be stipulated clearly in the decisions to suspend their implementation or decisions to deal with legal documents by the State competent agencies.

3. Decisions to suspend the implementation of legal documents or decisions to deal with legal documents shall be published on the Official Gazette and announced on mass media.

Article 81. Cases where legal documents are no longer valid

Legal documents shall become fully or partially invalid in the following cases:

1. The periods of validity expire as stipulated in legal documents.

2. Legal documents are amended, revised or replaced with new legal documents of the same State agencies that issued those legal documents in the first place.

3. Legal documents are abrogated or abolished by means of an official document of a State competent agency.

Article 82. Validity of legal documents in terms of geography and target groups

Legal documents promulgated by central State agencies shall take effect on a national scale and cover all the agencies, organizations and individuals except otherwise stipulated by legal documents or otherwise stipulated by international treaties of which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is one of the signatories.

Article 83. Application of legal documents

1. Legal documents shall be applied since their effective dates.

Legal documents shall be applied to behaviors taking place at the point of time such legal documents are being valid. In the event of legal documents taking retrospective effect, such rulings shall be applied.

2. In the event of legal documents having different rulings on the same issue or problem, those legal documents taking superior legal effect shall be applied.

3. In the event of legal documents promulgated by the same State agency but having different rulings on the same issue or problem, the rulings of the legal documents promulgated later shall be applied.

4. In the event of new legal documents imposing no liability or imposing lesser liability on those behaviors taking place prior to their effective dates, the new legal documents shall be applied.

Article 84. Publication and announcement of legal documents

Full texts of legal documents shall be posted on the website of the promulgating agency no later than two days since the date of their promulgation or signatures, and shall be announced on the mass media, except those legal documents having contents classified as State secrets.