Studies reveal that unlike Chinese and Southeast Asian villages during feudal time, the Vietnamese villages and communes applied a stricter self-rule regime with a fairly large scope covering various aspects of the community life, such as production organization (primarily irrigation), relations between different social strata, security protection, management of public property, public land division, learning promotion, social relief, organization of cultural and spiritual activities, and the implementation of tax and conscription duties.

The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee kicked off its 15th meeting in Hanoi on September 12, with a focus on the parliament and committee’s supervisory activities and preparations for the NA’s fourth session.

Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue on April 13 chaired a working session with the steering committee on making a plan on continuing to reform and improve the quality and efficiency of the parliament’s supervisory activities.

The procedural law and regulations in Vietnam during the 15th and 19 centuries were prescribed fairly comprehensively and specifically in “Quoc Trieu Hinh Luat” (the National Criminal Code) of the late Le dynasty and “Hoang Viet Luat Le” (the Royal Laws and Regulations of Vietnam) under the Nguyen dynasty. They were also codified into “Quoc Trieu Kham Tung Dieu Le” (the National Procedural Regulations of Royal Dynasties), which was really a distinctive legal phenomenon of the Vietnamese feudal laws.

Administrative procedures in Vietnam are institutionalized here and there in various legal documents, especially Government Resolution No. 38/CP of May 4, 1994, on reforming administrative procedures in the settlement of affairs of citizens and organizations and Prime Minister Decision No. 136/2001/QD-TTg of September 17, 2001, approving the overall program on state administration reform in the 2001- 2010 period.

In face of the critical socio-economic crisis during the late ’70s and early ’80s  of the last century, Vietnam has, since 1986, conducted a comprehensive renewal, closely combining the economic renewal with the political renewal, taking the economic renewal as focus while step by step renewing the political system. In the cause of renewal of the State apparatus, the renewal of the National Assembly — the supreme State power body — has been considered a central issue.

At its year-end session starting on October 20, the National Assembly passed new laws on public employees; environmental protection tax; protection of consumer interests; and administrative procedures. It approved amendments to the laws on inspection; minerals; insurance business; securities; and election of National Assembly deputies and People’s Council deputies.

National Assembly (NA) Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong has urged the drafting board and the verification agency to quickly finalize nearly complete bills for submission to the NA’s sixth session scheduled for November.

The Standing Committee of the National Assembly (NA) on September 19 adopted a resolution to assign competence to enforce criminal and civil judgments to 219 district-level courts from November 1, 2007.