Amendments to Regulations on Functions and Duties of Legal Organizations

Continuing to improve the legal framework on positions, functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of legal departments, standards, and preferential policies for those working in legal affairs

The Ministry of Justice stated that on July 4, 2011, the Government of Vietnam issued Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP which stipulates the functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of legal departments (hereinafter referred to as Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP).

After more than 10 years of implementation, legal affairs have achieved important results, contributing to the successful implementation of political tasks, socio-economic development; maintaining national security and defense; and enhancing Vietnam's position in the international arena: The quality of law development and enforcement has been improved; legal departments have been established, consolidated, and strengthened; human resources engaged in legal affairs have gradually developed with increasingly higher quality; coordination mechanisms in leadership and implementation of legal affairs have been gradually established and become more effective...

In addition to the achieved results, the implementation process of Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP still has some limitations and shortcomings as follows:

In practice, to fulfill their assigned tasks, some higher education institutions and vocational training centers have established legal departments or assigned personnel to handle legal affairs either full-time or part-time.

However, the organizational structure of the legal departments at public service providers has not been specifically stipulated in Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP. This leads to difficulties in consolidating the organizational structure and performing the tasks of the legal departments in these units.

After Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP was promulgated, many legal normative documents (VBQPPL) have been amended, supplemented, or newly issued, adjusting the tasks and powers of legal departments related to law development, law dissemination, legal education, inspection, review and systematization of VBQPPL, state compensation, consolidation of VBQPPL, monitoring the implementation of laws on administrative violation handling, and the signing and implementation of international agreements...

Therefore, some provisions of Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP no longer ensure the consistency and uniformity of the legal system; they lack regulations on the tasks and powers of legal departments at public service providers.

Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP does not provide for the legal departments in General Departments and equivalent entities with a vertical organizational model, thus, the General Departments and equivalent entities do not have a focal point to implement legal affairs at the local level, causing difficulties in implementing the assigned tasks at the grassroots level, and not ensuring the legal model from central to local levels.

Therefore, the amendment and supplementation of Decree No. 55/2011/ND-CP is necessary to promptly address some practical difficulties, continue to improve the legal framework on positions, functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of legal departments, standards, and preferential policies for those working in legal affairs to meet the requirements and tasks of legal affairs, the practical requirements of law development, institutional perfection, and law enforcement in the new context, thereby contributing to improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of legal affairs.

Invite readers to view the full text of the draft and provide feedback here.

Minh Hien

According to the Government of Vietnam Portal

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