Historic meeting

Speaking at a press conference to inform about the 9th session of the 15th National Assembly (NA) yesterday afternoon, May 4, NA Secretary General Le Quang Tung emphasized: "The 9th session is a historic session of the NA as well as the entire political system. At this session, the NA will implement historic decisions on the arrangement and streamlining of the apparatus of the political system as well as administrative units at all levels."

According to the Secretary General of the National Assembly, after a period of implementing Resolution 18 of the 12th Party Central Committee on streamlining the apparatus, the Party Central Committee and the Politburo have made a very historic decision to continue to streamline the apparatus, especially to arrange and merge administrative units. At this session, the National Assembly will decide on the arrangement and merger so that the whole country has 34 provinces and cities and rearrange the commune-level administrative units after the end of the district-level activities. Mr. Tung emphasized that these are very big tasks, requiring the Government and the National Assembly to prepare many projects and proposals, from amending the Constitution to financial and budgetary issues to serve the arrangement, in order to achieve high consensus in the National Assembly, as well as voters and people.

At the press conference, Deputy Head of the Office of the National Assembly Vu Minh Tuan said that at the session, the National Assembly will consider and decide on 54 contents on constitutional and legislative work, including 3 resolutions on constitutional work and 51 laws and resolutions on legislative work; 14 groups of contents on socio-economics, state budget, supervision and other important issues. Accordingly, the National Assembly will consider and pass 3 resolutions to amend the Constitution; pass 34 laws and 11 resolutions and give opinions on 6 other draft laws, including many laws serving the arrangement and streamlining of the apparatus, merging provinces and communes, etc.

Discussing the contents of this amendment to the Constitution, Deputy Head of the NA Committee on Law and Justice Nguyen Phuong Thuy said that the amendment to the Constitution aims to promptly institutionalize the conclusions and directions of the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat on the arrangement and streamlining of the apparatus of the political system. In Conclusion 127 on continuing to arrange the apparatus, the Politburo assigned the National Assembly Party Committee to coordinate with the Government Party Committee and relevant agencies to urgently study and propose contents that need to be amended and supplemented to the Constitution, with the scope being issues on the organization of the apparatus of the political system. The National Assembly Party Committee then reported to the Central Committee, the Politburo, and recently, the National Assembly Standing Committee also reported to the NA deputies on the amendment to the Constitution.

Regarding the content of this constitutional amendment, Ms. Thuy said that the amendment focuses on two groups, including: regulations on the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations in Articles 9, 10 and 84 to arrange socio-political organizations and mass associations assigned by the Party and State to be under the Vietnam Fatherland Front (in sync with the Party's organizational structure). The second is the regulation on local government in Chapter 9 to create a constitutional legal basis for the organization of two-level local government. It is expected to amend and supplement about 8 out of a total of 120 articles of the 2013 Constitution.

"With the content and scope of this amendment study, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposes that the National Assembly allow the study to issue a resolution to amend and supplement a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution," Ms. Thuy said, adding that at the opening session this morning, the National Assembly Standing Committee will submit to the National Assembly for consideration the decision to establish a Committee to amend and supplement a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution to develop a draft resolution to amend and supplement the Constitution. As planned, the draft resolution to amend and supplement the Constitution will be announced on May 6 to collect public opinions for about a month.

According to Ms. Thuy, after synthesizing public opinions, the Constitutional Amendment and Supplementation Committee will report to the National Assembly for consideration and approval of a resolution amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution no later than June 26, to have a legal basis for the National Assembly to consider and approve laws related to the organization of the apparatus and organization of two-level local governments. "In this public opinion collection, the Government proposes that in addition to the traditional method of collecting opinions, it is possible to apply the form of online opinion collection via the VNeID application. Currently, the Government is directing the Ministry of Public Security to actively implement this. This is also a new point in collecting public opinions," Ms. Thuy stated.

Appointment of provincial and commune chairmen after merger

Also at the press conference, answering the Politburo's institutionalization of the fact that when merging provinces, they will not elect the secretary, chairman, vice chairman of the People's Council, and People's Committee, but will appoint and appoint these positions, Ms. Nguyen Phuong Thuy said that this is an issue that has been considered and studied by competent authorities. Accordingly, in Conclusion 150 (on guidelines for developing personnel plans for provincial-level Party Committees subject to consolidation, merger, and newly established communes) of the Politburo clearly stated the requirement that in this administrative unit arrangement, the appointment and appointment of people holding positions in the People's Committees and People's Councils in the units after the arrangement will be implemented instead of the election according to the Law on Organization of Local Government. At the same time, the Politburo's conclusion also clearly stated the appointment of personnel who are not People's Council delegates to lead the People's Councils at the provincial and commune levels.

"The appointment of the chairman and vice chairman of the People's Committee and People's Council is a mechanism that has not been implemented before, but this arrangement has different characteristics compared to the previous arrangement of administrative units," Ms. Thuy said and analyzed that previously we had 2 phases of implementing the arrangement at the commune and district levels, 2019 - 2021 and 2023 - 2025. However, this arrangement, in addition to merging provinces and communes, also implements the Party's major policy of not organizing district-level administrative units, so the agencies under the district-level local government will end their operations at the same time as the merger of provinces and communes. Therefore, in order to meet the requirements of arranging and assigning cadres, especially cadres and civil servants working at the district level to work in new agencies and units, and to make the most of existing human resources, the Politburo has directed that the mechanism of designation and appointment will be implemented for those holding leadership positions of the People's Committee and People's Council at the units implementing the arrangement. "However, the appointment of personnel will only be carried out in 2025 corresponding to this large-scale arrangement. In the following years, normal elections will be held, and the People's Council will elect the positions of the People's Council and People's Committee," Ms. Thuy stated.

Ms. Thuy also informed that the appointment of provincial and communal leaders after the merger will also be recorded in the Resolution amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution in the transitional regulations, to serve as a legal basis for implementation.

Source: https://ttbc-hcm.gov.vn/ky-hop-quoc-hoi-trien-khai-nhung-quyet-sach-lich-su-1018601.html