The Law on Legal Dissemination and Education of Vietnam was adopted at the 3rd meeting of the 13th National Assembly on June 20, 2012. This Law takes effect from January 1, 2013.
Article table of contents
Law on Legal Dissemination and Education consists of five chapters and 41 articles, stipulating the right to information about the law and the responsibility of citizens to learn about and study the law; content and forms of legal dissemination and education; responsibilities of agencies, organizations, individuals with authority, and conditions ensuring the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam.
The legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam are the first step in the process of implementing the law and play a crucial role in strengthening the socialist legality and building the socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam by the people, for the people, and for the people. Due to the significant role and importance of the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam, our Party and State always pay attention to this work. Many documents of the Party and State laws mention the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam.
However, the results of the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam are still very limited, especially the law compliance awareness of a segment of officials and public employees and people in society is not high, negatively affecting the socio-economic development of the country, the effectiveness and efficiency of State management, and reducing the strictness of the law. There are many reasons for this situation, including the insufficient awareness of some ministries and central authorities, associations, and localities about the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam; the organization and personnel involved in the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam are still inadequate; the budget, facilities, and equipment for this work are very limited. A very important reason is that the legal documentation system on legal dissemination and education is still scattered, not synchronized, with low legal validity, mainly stopping at the documents of the Government of Vietnam and the Prime Minister of the Government of Vietnam to direct, guide, and urge the implementation of the legal dissemination and education, without a high-legal-validity legal document.
In the new development phase of the country, the requirement to enhance and promote the role and effectiveness of the law according to the Resolution of the 11th Party Congress demands a fundamental and comprehensive change in the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam. Therefore, the development and issuance of the Law on legal dissemination and education is very necessary.
The first basic content of the Law on legal dissemination and education to be mentioned is the Right to Information about the Law and the responsibility to learn and study the law of citizens. Institutionalizing the guiding viewpoint on building the Law, the Law affirms that citizens have the right to information about the law and the responsibility to proactively learn and study the law. At the same time, the Law determines the responsibility of the State to ensure and create conditions for citizens to exercise their right to information about the law. This right of citizens is concretized in Clause 2 Article 11 (Forms of legal dissemination and education), Article 15 (Consulting, guiding to learn the law, providing information, legal documents); Clause 2 Article 17 (Disseminating and educating the law to people in ethnic minority areas, mountainous areas, remote areas, border areas, coastal areas, islands, areas with especially difficult socio-economic conditions, and fishermen).
The second basic content is the State's policy on legal dissemination and education and private investment in the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam. Institutionalizing the Party's viewpoint in Directive No. 32-CT/T.U, the Law stipulates that legal dissemination and education are the responsibility of the entire political system, in which the State plays the core role. The Law determines the policy of private investment in legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam and has a separate article on private investment in this work in Article 4, assigning the Government of Vietnam to stipulate specific support policies for agencies, organizations, enterprises, and individuals participating in the legal dissemination and education, based on the socio-economic situation of each period. Besides, the Law has reflected this policy in the regulations on forms of legal dissemination and education such as: mediation at the grassroots level, utilizing law bookcases, integrating in cultural and artistic activities, activities of political organizations and associations, clubs, and other cultural institutions at the grassroots level; regulations encouraging and having policies to support, create conditions for agencies, organizations, individuals participating in the legal dissemination and education; responsibilities of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, legal practice organizations, legal vocational social organizations, law training institutions, training, and judicial position fostering institutions, the responsibility of families, legal propagandists, and those invited to participate in the legal dissemination and education at the grassroots level.
The Law affirms the general policy that the State ensures the necessary resources for the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam, while also focusing resources on disseminating and educating the law to specific subjects in Section 2, Chapter II of the Law.
The third basic content is State management of legal dissemination and education. The Law specifically stipulates the contents of State management of legal dissemination and education, while determining the State management agency of this work, accordingly, the Government of Vietnam is assigned the task of unifying the State management of legal dissemination and education; the Ministry of Justice is responsible to the Government of Vietnam for performing the State management of this work. Legalizes an important task that has been and is being effectively implemented, the Law assigns the Ministry of Justice to preside over the development, and submission of long-term and medium-term programs and plans on legal dissemination and education for the Prime Minister of the Government of Vietnam to promulgate; presides over the development of the national legal database. Besides, the Law assigns ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and People's Committees at all levels within the scope of their tasks and powers to manage the State's legal dissemination and education.
Regarding the Coordination Council for Legal Dissemination and Education, the Law stipulates that the Council is established at three levels: central; province, centrally run city; district, urban district, district-level town, city under provincial administration. The function of the Council is an advisory body to the Government of Vietnam, provincial-level People's Committees, and district-level People's Committees on the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam and mobilize resources for this work. As for the commune level, since it is the level that organizes the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam, no Council is established.
The Law stipulates that the Standing Agency of the Coordination Council for legal dissemination and education of the Government of Vietnam is the Ministry of Justice, at the provincial level, it is the Department of Justice, and at the district level, it is the Division of Justice. The Law assigns the Prime Minister of the Government of Vietnam to stipulate in detail the composition and tasks, and powers of the Coordination Council for legal dissemination and education.
Notably, the Law has stipulated November 9 every year as the Legal Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Article 8. The Law takes November 9 annually as the Legal Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to honor the Constitution, law, and educate the sense of legal compliance of officials and public employees, the people, and businessmen. This is the day the 1946 Constitution, the first fundamental law of our State, was promulgated.
Regarding the Content of legal dissemination and education for citizens (Article 10), the Law stipulates that it must cover all legal normative documents issued. Based on this, the Law on legal dissemination and education states that the content of legal dissemination and education is the provisions of the Constitution and legal normative documents, focusing on the provisions of the law on civil, criminal, administrative, marriage and family, gender equality, land, construction, environmental protection, labor, education, health, national defense, security, traffic, basic rights and obligations of citizens, powers, and responsibilities of State agencies, and officials; newly promulgated legal normative documents; international treaties to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a party and international agreements.
In addition to the provisions of the law, the content of legal dissemination and education also includes the awareness of respecting and complying with the law; the awareness of protecting the law; the benefits of complying with the law; examples of good people, good deeds in law compliance to contribute to building trust in the law and developing new citizens not only with legal knowledge but also with law compliance awareness.
Regarding the forms of legal dissemination and education for citizens, the Law stipulates the common forms of legal dissemination and education that are currently applied widely and effectively in practice such as press conferences, press releases; direct legal dissemination; consulting, guiding to learn the law; providing information and legal documents...
Additionally, the Law stipulates the legal dissemination and education for specific groups that face many difficulties in accessing information, learning, and studying the law, such as people in ethnic minority areas, mountainous areas, remote areas, border areas, coastal areas, islands, areas with especially difficult socio-economic conditions, and fishermen; workers in enterprises; victims of domestic violence; persons with disabilities; persons serving prison sentences, persons being subject to measures of compulsory education in reform schools, compulsory education in correctional facilities, compulsory detoxification in detoxification centers, and persons under education measures in communes, wards, towns, persons with suspended sentences.
For each group, the Law stipulates practical legal content directly related to the group being educated; the forms of legal dissemination and education suitable for each group; responsibilities of agencies, organizations, and individuals directly involved in the legal dissemination and education; policies on legal dissemination and education for specific groups and encourages social organizations and individuals to invest and support the legal dissemination and education for these groups.
The Law also stipulates legal education in educational institutions of the national education system (Articles 23 and 24); responsibilities for legal dissemination and education of agencies and organizations (Section 1, Chapter III); legal rapporteurs (Articles 35 and 36), legal propagandists, and people invited to participate in the legal dissemination and education at the grassroots level (Article 37); measures to ensure the legal dissemination and education work in Vietnam (Articles 40 and 41).
Source: Nhan Dan Online
