The Ministry of Justice is reviewing the draft Decree guiding the collection of public opinions on the establishment, dissolution, merger, division, adjustment of boundaries and renaming of administrative units, which will be developed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
According to the draft submission, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that in practice, the implementation of Decree No. 54/2018/ND-CP dated April 16, 2018 of the Government when implementing the arrangement of administrative units at all levels for the period 2019-2021 and the period 2023-2025, the consultation with voters has achieved certain advantages.
However, there are still some difficulties and inadequacies such as: Due to the lack of a clear determination of the administrative unit directly affected, the locality still has many different understandings. This leads to the implementation of collecting public opinions when arranging administrative units at all levels not being synchronous and unified.
In fact, implementing the Law on Organization of Local Government 2025, the Law on Implementing Democracy at the Grassroots Level 2022, Resolution No. 76/2025/UBTVQH15 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the arrangement of administrative units in 2025, the collection of opinions from households has been highly effective and has received consensus from the people.
Local authorities at all levels organize the collection of opinions on the arrangement of provincial and commune-level administrative units in 2025, ensuring full implementation of citizens' rights and obligations according to the provisions of the Law on Grassroots Democracy.
From the above grounds, the Ministry of Home Affairs believes that it is necessary to develop and issue a new Decree of the Government guiding the collection of public opinions on the establishment, dissolution, merger, division, adjustment of boundaries and renaming of administrative units (replacing Decree No. 54/2018/ND-CP amended and supplemented in 2023).
Notably, in Article 4 of the draft Decree, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposes a procedure for collecting opinions.
Accordingly, after developing a Project to establish, dissolve, merge, divide, adjust boundaries and rename administrative units, the People's Committee at the provincial level issued a document with the form of the forms of the forms of opinions and documents for comments to the People's Committee at the commune level; directed and instructed the People's Committees at the commune level to organize the collection of opinions from the people in each village and residential group.
Within 60 working days from the date of receipt of the document from the Provincial People's Committee, the Commune People's Committee will complete the collection of public opinions.
Within 5 working days from the date of completion of the public consultation, the People's Committee at the commune level will synthesize and prepare a report on the results of the public consultation in the area to the People's Council at the same level and the People's Committee at the provincial level.
For commune-level administrative units that do not organize People's Councils, the People's Committees at the commune level will synthesize and prepare a report on the results of the consultation with local people to send to the Provincial People's Committees.
Within 5 working days from the date of receipt of the report on the results of the public consultation of the People's Committee at the commune level, the People's Committee at the provincial level will synthesize and prepare a report on the results of the public consultation in the area and send it to the People's Council at the provincial level.
