Chương I Luật ban hành văn bản quy phạm pháp luật 2015: Những quy định chung

Chapter I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. Scope

This Law provides for principles, authority, manners, procedures for formulating and promulgating legislative documents, responsibilities of regulatory agencies, organizations, and individuals in formulating legislative documents.

This Law does not deal with the formulation and revisions of the Constitution.

Article 2. Legislative documents

Legislative documents are documents that contain legal regulations and the promulgation of which complies with regulations of law on authority, manner, and procedures provided for in this Law.

Legislative documents that contain legal regulations but the promulgation of which complies with regulations of law on authority, manner, and procedures provided for in this Law are not considered legislative documents.

Article 3. Interpretation of terms

In this Law, the terms below are construed as follows:

1. Normative regulations are general rules of conduct, commonly binding, and applied repeatedly to agencies, organizations and individuals nationwide or within a certain administrative division, promulgated by the regulatory agencies and competent persons in this Law, and the implementation of which is ensured by the State.

2. Entities regulated by legislative documents are agencies, organizations, and individuals whose rights, obligations, and duties are directly affected by the application of such documents after they are promulgated.

3. Explanation for the Constitution, Law, or Ordinance means a work of Standing Committee of the National Assembly meant to clarify the ideas and contents of certain Articles, Clauses, and paragraphs in the  Constitution, Law, or Ordinance in order that they are known, correctly and uniformly applied.

Article 4. The system of legislative documents

1. The Constitution.

2. Codes and Laws (hereinafter referred to as Laws), Resolutions of the National Assembly

3. Ordinances, Resolutions of Standing Committee of the National Assembly; Joint Resolutions between Standing Committee of the National Assembly and Management Board of Central Committee of Vietnamese Fatherland Front

4. Orders, Decisions of the President.

5. Decrees of the Government; Joint Resolutions between the Government and Management Board of Central Committee of Vietnamese Fatherland Front

6. Decision of the Prime Minister.

7. Resolutions of Judge Council of the People’s Supreme Court.

8. Circulars of executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court; Circulars of the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; Circulars of Ministers, Heads of ministerial agencies; Joint Circulars between executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court and the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; Joint Circulars between Ministers, Heads of ministerial agencies and executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court, the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; Decisions of State Auditor General.

9. Resolutions of the People’s Councils of central-affiliated cities and provinces (hereinafter referred to as provinces).

10. Decisions of the People’s Committees of provinces.

11. Legislative documents of local governments in administrative - economic units.

12. Resolutions of the People’s Councils of districts, towns and cities within provinces (hereinafter referred to as districts).

13. Decisions of the People’s Committees of districts.

14. Resolutions of the People’s Councils of communes, wards and towns within districts (hereinafter referred to as communes).

15. Decisions of the People’s Committees of communes.

Article 5. Rules for formulating and promulgating legislative documents

1. Ensure the constitutionality, legitimacy, and uniformity of legislative documents in the legal system.

2. Comply with regulations of law on authority, manner, and procedures for formulating and promulgating legislative documents.

3. Ensure transparency of legislative documents.

4. Ensure the feasibility, frugality, effectiveness, promptness, accessibility, and practicality of legislative documents; integrate gender equality issues in legislative documents; ensure simplification of administrative procedures.

5. Ensure national defense and security, environmental protection without obstruction of implementation of the international agreements to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a signatory.

6. Ensure publicity and democracy in receipt of and response to opinions, complaints of agencies, organizations, and individuals during the process of formulating and promulgating legislative documents.

Article 6. Providing opinions for formulation of legislative documents

1. Vietnamese Fatherland Front, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, other associate organizations of Vietnamese Fatherland Front, other agencies, organizations, and individuals are entitled and will be enabled to provide opinions about formulation of legislative documents and draft legislative documents.

2. During the formulation of legislative documents, the drafting agencies and relevant organizations must enable other organizations and individuals to provide opinions about formulation of legislative documents and draft legislative documents; seek opinions from entities regulated by legislative documents.

3. Opinions about formulation of legislative documents and draft legislative documents must be considered during the process of adjusting draft documents.

Article 7. Responsibilities of competent agencies and persons for formulation and promulgation of legislative documents

1. The agency/person competent to submit the project/draft of legislative document (hereinafter referred to as submitting agency/person) is responsible for the punctuality and quality of such project/draft.

2. The agency or organization in charge of drafting the legislative document (hereinafter referred to as drafting agency/person) is responsible to the submitting agency/person or the agency/person competent to promulgate the document (hereinafter referred to as promulgating agency/person) for the punctuality and quality of the project/draft.

3. The competent agencies, organizations, and persons asked for opinions about formulation of legislative documents or draft legislative documents are responsible for the contents and punctuality of their opinions.

4. The appraising agency/person is responsible to the submitting agency/person or promulgating agency/person for the appraisal result with regard to the request for formulation of legislative documents or the project/draft.

The inspecting agency/person is responsible to the promulgating agency for result of inspection of project/draft of legislative documents.

5. The National Assembly, the People’s Councils, other agencies and persons competent to promulgate legislative documents are responsible for the quality of documents they promulgate.

6. Competent agencies and persons are responsible for late promulgation of document elaborating implementation of laws, resolutions of the National Assembly, ordinances, resolutions of Standing Committee of the National Assembly, orders and decisions of the President.

7. Competent agencies and persons are responsible for promulgation of legislative documents that contravene the Constitution, laws, resolutions of the National Assembly, ordinances, resolutions of Standing Committee of the National Assembly, orders and decisions of the President, decrees of the government, decisions of the Prime Minister, legislative documents of superior regulatory agencies, or that exceed their given tasks.

8. Heads of drafting agency, appraising agency, submitting agency, and inspecting agency, within their competence, are responsible for their unfulfilled duties and shall be dealt with according to regulations of law on public officials and other relevant regulations of law if quality of draft documents is not satisfactory, schedule is not met, or constitutionality, legitimacy, and uniformity of the legislative documents are not ensured.

Article 8. Language and format of legislative documents

1. The language of legislative documents is Vietnamese.

The language of legislative documents is Vietnamese must be accurate, common, clear, and understandable.

2. Contents of legislative documents must be specific, not vague, and not include the contents of other legislative documents.

3. Depending of its content, a legislative document may be separated into parts, chapters, sections, sub-sections, articles, clauses, paragraphs; each part, chapter, section, subsection, and article of a legal document must have a title.  Issues related to inspection, complains, denunciation, reward and commendation, and actions against violations shall not be separated into a new chapter if there are no new contents.

4. Standing Committee of the National Assembly shall specify the format of legislative documents of the National Assembly, Standing Committee of the National Assembly, and the President.

The government shall specify the format of legislative documents of other competent agencies and persons prescribed in this Law.

Article 9. Translation of legislative documents into ethnic languages and foreign languages

Legislative documents may be translated into ethnic languages and foreign languages; the translations are for reference purpose only.

The government shall elaborate this Article.

Article 10. Numbers and symbols of legislative documents

1. Each legislative document must have a specify ordinal number, year or promulgation, type, and promulgating agency.

2. Legislative documents shall be numbered according to each type and year of promulgation.  Laws, resolutions of the National Assembly, ordinances, resolutions of Standing Committee of the National Assembly shall be numbered according to each type of document and tenure of the National Assembly.

3. Numbers and symbols of legislative documents are arranged as follows:

a) Numbers, symbols of laws and resolutions of the National Assembly are arranged in the following order: “type of document: number of document/year of promulgation/abbreviated name of promulgating agency, and ordinal number of the National Assembly”;

b) Numbers, symbols of ordinances and resolutions of the National Assembly are arranged in the following order: “type of document: number of document/year of promulgation/abbreviated name of promulgating agency, and ordinal number of the National Assembly”;

c) Numbers, symbols of legislative documents other than those prescribed in Point a and Point b of this Clause are arranged in the following order: “number of document/year of promulgation/abbreviated name of document type - abbreviated name of the promulgating agency”

Article 11. Elaborating documents

1. Legislative documents must be specific in order that they can be promptly applied when they are effective. In case there is an article, clause, paragraph that relates to some specific procedures, technical regulations, and other contents that need elaborating, a regulatory agency may be assigned to elaborate such article, clause, paragraph right within its contents. The elaborating document may only prescribe the contents assigned and must not repeat contents of the elaborated document.

2. The agency assigned to promulgate the elaborating document must not assign a third agency to perform this task.

The draft of the elaborating documents must be prepared and submitted together with the law project or ordinance project, and must be so promulgated that it comes into force at the same time with the document, article, clause, or paragraph being elaborated.

3. In case an agency is assigned to elaborate multiple parts of a legislative document, it may promulgate a single document to elaborate all the parts, unless they must be elaborated in different documents.

In case an agency is assigned to elaborate contents of various legislative documents, it may promulgate a single document to elaborate all of them.

Article 12. Amendment, replacement, annulment, and suspension of legislative documents

1. A legislative document may only be amended, replaced, or annulled by another legislative document promulgated by the same regulatory agency that promulgated the original one or by a competent superior agency in writing. The amending, replacing, annulling, or suspending document must specify every document, part, chapter, section, subsection, article, clause, and paragraph that are amended, replaced, annulled, or suspended.

The document that annuls another legislative document must be published on the Official Gazette and posted as prescribed.

2. When promulgating a legislative document, if the promulgating agency must amend or annul every document and every part, chapter, section, subsection, article, clause, and paragraph of documents which contravene regulations of the new document right within the new document. If such task cannot be performed immediately, every part, chapter, section, subsection, article, clause, and paragraph which contravenes the new document must be specified in the new document and the task must be performed before the new document comes into force.

3. A legislative document may be promulgated to amend, replace, annul contents of multiple legislative documents promulgated by the same agency.

Article 13. Sending legislative documents, dossiers on projects/drafts of legislative documents

1. Every legislative document must be sent to competent authorities for supervision and inspection.

Within 03 days from the day on which a law or resolution of the National Assembly, ordinance or resolution of Standing Committee of the National Assembly is announced, or another legislative document is signed, the promulgating agency/person shall send it to the competent authority mentioned in Clause 1 Article 164 of this Law for supervision, and to the competent authority mentioned in Clause 3 Article 165, Clause 1 Article 166, or Clause 1 Article 167 of this Law for inspection.

2. Dossiers on projects/drafts and original copies of legislative documents must be retained in accordance with regulations of law on document retention.

Article 14. Prohibited acts

1. Promulgating legislative documents against the Constitution or legislative documents promulgated by superior regulatory agencies.

2. Promulgate documents other than those in the system of legislative documents prescribed in Article 4 of this Law but containing normative regulations

3. Promulgating legislative documents against regulations on authority, manner, and procedures of this Law.

4. Impose administrative procedures in circulars of executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court; circulars of the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; circulars of Ministers, Heads of ministerial agencies; joint circulars between executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court and the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; joint circulars between Ministers, Heads of ministerial agencies and executive judge of the People’s Supreme Court, the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; decisions of State Auditor General, resolutions of the People’s Councils of provinces, decisions of the People’s Councils of provinces, legislative documents of local governments of administrative - economic units; resolutions of the People’s Councils of districts, decisions of the People’s Committees of districts, resolutions of the People’s Councils of communes, decisions of the People’s Committees of communes, unless assigned by law.