Vietnam: What are legislative documents?

About what is a legislative document: According to Article 2 of the Law on Promulgation of legislative documents 2015 of Vietnam: “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.”.

According to Clause 1 Article 3 of this Law, it is explained that “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”.

According to the above definition, the first and most important sign to identify a legal document is whether the document contains "normative regulations" or not should be done in the entire process of developing and issuing a legal document. If the document to be promulgated contains "normative regulations", the drafting and promulgation of such document must comply with the order and procedures of the promulgation of legal documents. Conversely, if it does not contain legal regulations, the drafting and promulgation of such documents are not subject to the order and procedures of drafting legal documents. It should be noted that “containing normative regulations” is understood even if the document contains only one legal norm.

Thus, from the above opinion, we can draw the concept and also the characteristics of legal documents as follows:

- The document must contain normative regulations, general rules of conduct and regulation of relationships in society;

- It is Issued or jointly promulgated by a State agency;

- It is drafted and promulgated according to its competence, form, order and procedures prescribed by law;

- It has a compulsory effect, guaranteed by the State.

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