On August 24, with 467/470 National Assembly deputies participating in the vote in favor, the National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Architecture Law. This Law takes effect from March 1, 2027.
Before the delegates pressed the button to approve, Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh presented a report on receiving and explaining the opinions of the National Assembly delegates... on the draft Law.
The report clearly states that some opinions suggested assigning the People's Committee (PC) at the commune level the authority to establish and promulgate regulations on architectural management within the administrative boundaries of their units.
If it is not decentralized to the commune-level People's Committee, the number of urban and rural architectural management regulations that the provincial-level People's Committees compile is very large, easily overloaded, slow in progress, affecting the quality of documents.
Regarding this issue, the Government has reviewed, supplemented and completed regulations on decentralization and authorization for commune-level People's Committees to organize the establishment and promulgation of architectural management regulations when meeting sufficient conditions on organizational structure, personnel and professional capacity.
At the same time, supplementing regulations that provincial-level People's Committees when decentralizing and authorizing must be responsible for allocating resources, providing professional guidance, technical support, guiding, and inspecting the implementation of decentralization and authorization.
There are also opinions suggesting restoring at least one of the two control mechanisms for the Provincial-level Architecture Management Regulations submitted to the Provincial People's Council for approval or obtaining written unified opinions from the Ministry of Construction for cases subject to control; both mechanisms should not be abolished at the same time because they may reduce transparency and accountability.
Many opinions suggested that regulations established by communes must be appraised or agreed upon by provincial-level specialized agencies before promulgation; provincial levels need to promulgate a framework of regulations/model criteria, professional support and funding to ensure architectural space unity.
According to the report, not requiring provincial-level specialized agencies to appraise or have a unanimous opinion before the commune-level People's Committee issues it does not mean that the provincial level lacks management.
The Provincial People's Committee is responsible for guiding, inspecting and organizing inspections when necessary; in case the regulations have content affecting inter-commune, inter-regional space or belong to areas with specific management requirements, they are not within the scope of decentralization to the commune level.
The draft amended and supplemented Law stipulates that provincial-level People's Committees are authorized and decentralized to commune-level People's Committees to organize the establishment and promulgation of architectural management regulations (with the scope entirely within the administrative unit boundaries of commune-level), in order to concretize the leadership and direction of the Party and the National Assembly on continuing to promote decentralization and decentralization when implementing the organization of 2-level local government.
Going hand in hand with regulations on decentralization and delegation of power to commune-level People's Committees, the draft amended and supplemented Law has supplemented regulations to ensure the performance of tasks of commune-level People's Committees.
The Government has also supplemented regulations that provincial-level People's Committees are responsible for transferring data, allocating resources, providing professional guidance, technical support and inspecting the implementation of decentralization; deciding the scope and time when authorizing commune-level People's Committees...
