Rights and Responsibilities of Spokespersons and Persons Authorized to Speak

Decree 09/2017/ND-CP prescribes:

1. The spokesperson and the authorized spokesperson have the authority to act on behalf of the state administrative agency to speak and provide information to the press.

2. The spokesperson and the authorized spokesperson have the right to request related units and individuals within their agency to provide information, gather information for speaking, and provide regular or ad-hoc information to the press; to respond to the reflections, proposals, criticisms, complaints, and denunciations from organizations and citizens forwarded or reported by the press according to the provisions of law.

Units and individuals, upon the request of the spokesperson or the authorized spokesperson for the provision of information, have the responsibility to comply with the requirements regarding the content and timing of the information provision.

3. The spokesperson and the authorized spokesperson have the right to refuse to speak and provide information to the press in the following cases:

- Information classified as state secrets, secrets according to the principles and regulations of the Communist Party, personal privacy, and other secrets as prescribed by law;- Information about cases under investigation or not yet tried, except when the state administrative agency or investigative agency needs to provide the press with information beneficial to the investigation and crime prevention efforts;- Information about matters under inspection without a conclusion; matters in the process of complaint resolution, denunciation; disputes, conflicts between state agencies under resolution, without an official conclusion by the competent authority, which according to the provisions of law, are not permitted to be disclosed;- Draft policy documents, proposals in the drafting process that have not been authorized for disclosure according to the provisions of law.

4. The spokesperson and the authorized spokesperson are responsible for speaking and providing information to the press and are accountable before the law and the head of the state administrative agency for the content of their statements and the information provided to the press.

5. In the event that the press publishes or broadcasts inaccurate information as issued by the spokesperson or the authorized spokesperson, the spokesperson or the authorized spokesperson has the right to provide feedback in writing to the press agency, the governing body of the press, the state management agency on the press, or initiate a lawsuit in Court.

See more Decree 09/2017/ND-CP effective from March 30, 2017.

- Ngoc Duyen -

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