The Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front was first promulgated by the 10th National Assembly of Vietnam on June 26, 1999, in the early stages of the country's reform period; it's been more than 15 years now. Since then, the awareness of the position, role, functions and tasks of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in building, protecting and developing the country during the period of international integration has changed. To be in consistency with the Constitution 2013 and to regulate more clearly the responsibilities, powers and tasks of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, legislate the position, role, functions, tasks, mechanisms and conditions to ensure the operation of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and overcome the limitations and inadequacies of the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 1999, on June 09, 2015, at the 9th session of the 13th National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Law on Vietnam Fatherland Front No. 75/2015/QH13 was approved, effective from January 01, 2016.
Article table of contents
The Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015 consists of 08 chapters - 41 articles (which is more than that of the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 1999, 04 chapters - 23 articles). In order for the Front's work to achieve good results and meet task requirements in the current period, Fatherland Front Committees at all levels are required to thoroughly grasp and well implement the main contents and new points of the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015, specifically as follows:
1. Organization
The Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015 spends 01 article to regulate the organization of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front from the central and administrative divisions (the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 1999 did not clearly and consistently stipulate but only in the Charter, the legality was not high).
- In central divisions: Central Committee of Vietnamese Fatherland Front, Presidium of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and Central Standing Committee of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front;
- At the provincial, district and commune levels, there are Vietnam Fatherland Front Committees at the same level;
- Each level has a Standing Committee of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front of its own.
2. Relationship between the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and the State, the people and organizations
In addition to perfecting regulations on the relationship between the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and the State, the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015 also specifies relationships between the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and the people and organizations in Article 8 and Article 9.
- The Vietnamese Fatherland Front shall represent and protect lawful rights and interests of the people; expand and diversify ways of gathering and uniting the people;
- The people shall monitor operation of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front to ensure it exercises rights and responsibilities adequately and fully according to law provisions;
- Relationship between the Committee of Vietnamese Fatherland Front and economic organizations, public service organizations and non-member organizations of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front is the voluntary relationship instructed in accordance with law provisions aimed at furthering socio-economic development, protection of lawful rights and interests of the people, construction and defense of the Fatherland.
3. Gathering and building great unity of the nation
The Vietnamese Fatherland Front shall diversify ways of organization and operation to gather and unite all Vietnamese people at home and abroad regardless of backgrounds, social classes, races, beliefs, religions and pasts by:
- Propagandizing and mobilizing the people;
- Uniting and cooperating with the people’s lawful organizations;
- Bringing into play positives of typical individuals from social classes, races, religions;
- Admitting and developing members to the Vietnamese Fatherland Front;
- Propagandizing and calling upon overseas Vietnamese people to unite communities, help each other in life, respect the laws of host countries; preserve and bring into play good cultural and tradition characters of the nation;
- Adopting other activities concerning rights and responsibilities of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front.
4. The Vietnamese Fatherland Front represents and protects lawful rights and interests of the people by
- Reflecting opinions and proposals from constituency and the people at sessions of the National Assembly, meeting sessions of People’s Council of all levels;
- Coordination in organizing dialogs with constituency of the Delegation of National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels;
- Propagandizing and calling upon the people to exercise autonomous rights, policies and laws;
- Receive citizens, take part in handling complaints, denunciations, grant special reprieve, and delegate the people’s advocates.
5. New regulation on the Vietnamese Fatherland Front’s participation in State- building
According to article 23 of the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015, the Vietnamese Fatherland Front shall take part in prevention and fighting against corruption and extravagance as follows:
- Propagandize and call upon the people to exercise the laws on prevention and fighting against corruption and extravagance;
- Request competent agencies, organizations, and individuals to take measures to prevent corruption and extravagance; verify cases of corruption, extravagance; handle persons who commit acts of corruptions and extravagance;
- Make proposals to competent state agencies for protection and commendation for persons who deserve for detecting and denouncing acts of corruption and extravagance.
6. Monitoring activities
Scope of monitoring includes the exercise of policies and laws concerning lawful rights and interests of the people, rights and responsibilities of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front. Manner of monitoring includes:
- Study and review documents issued by competent agencies relating to lawful rights and interests of the people;
- Organize team of monitoring;
- Pass activities of the People’s Inspectorate at commune level and Public Investment Supervisory Board.
7. Social criticism
Social criticism by the Vietnamese Fatherland Front means the committees of Vietnamese Fatherland Front at all levels engages themselves or requests their member organizations to give comments, assessment and raise political opinions, proposals over draft legislation, planning, plans, programs and projects (hereinafter referred to as draft documents) by the State.
03 manners of social criticism:
- Organize conferences of social criticism;
- Send draft documents of social criticism to relevant agencies, organizations, and individuals for collection of suggestions on social criticism.
- Organize dialogs between the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and agencies, organizations that have draft documents of social criticism.
Above are some new points of the Law on Vietnamese Fatherland Front 2015 compared to the Law on the Vietnam Fatherland Front 1999 that we researched and edited so that Fatherland Front officials at all levels can grasp and deploy effectively at the grassroots level.
Source: mattrantoquoc.vinhphuc.gov.vn
