The article by the General Secretary and President has given us a new approach to the issue of building and perfecting the Socialist Rule of Law State (SLR) of Vietnam. Vietnam Law Newspaper had an interview with Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh about this issue.
Establish revolutionary methods on the basis of practice
Dear Deputy Minister, how do you evaluate the significance of the article by General Secretary and President To Lam?
- Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW dated November 9, 2022 of the 13th Party Central Committee on continuing to build and perfect the socialist rule of law in Vietnam in the new period (Resolution 27) clearly stated that one of the basic characteristics of the socialist rule of law in Vietnam is that it is under the leadership of the Party. However, before General Secretary To Lam wrote the above article, this issue had not been studied and approached in a profound, complete and comprehensive manner. From the characteristics of the socialist rule of law in Vietnam being under the leadership of the Party as well as the characteristics of the political system and the socio-economic development of the country, the General Secretary had the guiding viewpoint of "standing on the reality of the land of Vietnam to determine the method for the Vietnamese revolution in the new era".
From that approach, General Secretary To Lam has put forward a guiding viewpoint in building and perfecting the socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam through the direct and comprehensive leadership of the Party; through the position and role of grassroots party organizations and the revolutionary vanguard and exemplary leadership of cadres and party members so that we can strive to successfully implement Resolution 27.
The General Secretary emphasized: The characteristic of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is that it is under the leadership of the Party, therefore, building a Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a measure and method to successfully implement the goals of our Party as defined in the Party Charter.
The article by the General Secretary has been published in many newspapers, truly a breath of fresh air creating new vitality to promote the process of building and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam of the People, by the People, for the People faster and more effectively.
Mobilizing the real participation of the entire political system
With such great significance, according to the Deputy Minister, what are the basic contents that the General Secretary wants to emphasize in this article?
- I think that, through this article, the ideology of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam that the General Secretary wants to emphasize includes the following main contents. First, the General Secretary affirmed that building and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a measure to successfully carry out the task of building a socialist state as affirmed in the Party Charter, which is "building an independent, democratic, prosperous, fair and civilized Vietnam, no longer exploiting man by man, successfully implementing socialism and finally communism". At the same time, this is also a measure to realize the national development goals stated in the Documents of the 13th National Party Congress, aiming at two strategic goals, the 100th anniversary of the Party's founding (2030) and the 100th anniversary of the country's founding (2045); demonstrating the aspiration and will of the entire Party and people to build a peaceful, stable and prosperous Vietnam. To soon achieve these goals, building a socialist rule-of-law state is a solution, so we must focus resources and efforts to implement it.
Second, to complete the goals and tasks of building and perfecting the socialist rule-of-law state, it is necessary to promote the real and effective participation of the entire political system through promoting and harmoniously resolving the relationship between three factors: Party leadership, State management, and People's mastery. This idea was clearly stated by General Secretary To Lam in the article.
Regarding promoting the Party's leadership in the socialist state, the General Secretary emphasized the direction of the work of building and perfecting institutions with new, drastic and scientific approaches. Accordingly, the Party leads through guidelines and policies; leads the institutionalization of guidelines and policies into laws to manage the state and society.
At the same time, there must be a strict, scientific and democratic law-making process so that policies and laws fully reflect the will and aspirations of the people, protect the interests of the State, and the legitimate and legal rights and interests of organizations and individuals. In the process of organizing law enforcement, the Government needs to monitor and evaluate the situation of law enforcement to promptly detect legal provisions that are contradictory, overlapping, and not suitable to reality, hindering innovation, attracting investment resources, production and business in order to have measures to handle them, not allowing some laws to become "bottlenecks" hindering the implementation of human rights, civil rights and socio-economic development.
Regarding State management, the General Secretary emphasized that we need to promote and harmoniously apply the principles of "virtuous governance" and "rule of law" in the spirit that "virtuous governance" is the promotion of the advantages, strengths, positions, and roles of grassroots Party organizations, the pioneering and exemplary nature of cadres and Party members to lead the "rule of law" factor, which is the implementation of social management by law.
In short, simple terms, the significance of this issue is enormous: as cadres and party members in the state administrative system, they must be exemplary and take the lead, ensuring the rule of law. Reality has proven that if cadres and party members perform well their assigned duties and tasks, proactively detect and remove difficulties and obstacles in practice, consider people and businesses as the center, the subjects of service according to the rule of law principle, then the law will come into life, administrative reform will be ensured, "bottlenecks" will be removed, thereby opening up development resources; if cadres and civil servants are exemplary, frustrations in procedural processes or delays, indifference, lack of responsibility, insensitivity towards the people... will no longer exist.
In that spirit, the General Secretary affirmed that there will be no socialist rule of law in reality if cadres, party members, and state agencies are indifferent, irresponsible, and insensitive to the legitimate rights and interests of the people, businesses, and socio-economic development.
Regarding the issue of people being the masters, the General Secretary emphasized that in order to have real democracy, all cadres and party members must uphold the spirit of responsibility and sacrifice for the common cause, and care for the people so that the people can fully exercise their legitimate rights and interests according to the principle of "People know, people discuss, people do, people inspect, people supervise, people enjoy". If we keep talking about democracy, but cadres and party members do not set an example, do not guide, and do not create the necessary conditions for implementation, then democracy there is only a formality. In order for "Our Party to be ethical and civilized", during his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh once required that all policies and laws of the Party and State must be for the people, protect the people; all cadres and party members must be "servants of the people".
Therefore, in all their work, the exemplary role of cadres and party members will bring practical benefits to the people. Doing this well will promote people's consensus in implementing the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws; thereby promoting democracy, encouraging people to participate more actively in state and social management, meeting the requirements of rapid and sustainable national development, becoming a developed country with high income in the direction of socialism by 2045 according to the goal set out in Resolution 27.
Promoting the position and role of the judiciary
From the meaning and message in the General Secretary's article on building and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the new era, according to the Deputy Minister, what should the Judicial sector do to bring this idea into life?
- Although we have achieved initial results in implementing Resolution No. 27, the General Secretary believes that the construction and completion of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still has many shortcomings and limitations. Therefore, to realize the country's development goals in the era of the Vietnamese people's rise, the General Secretary requires the participation of the entire political system.
In the spirit of the General Secretary's direction, in my opinion, the ministries and branches at the central and local levels need to pay attention to reviewing and evaluating the implementation of Resolution 27, thereby supplementing solutions according to the General Secretary's guiding ideology to soon complete the goals of building and perfecting the socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam.
The contents that the General Secretary mentioned in the article are great ideas, extremely practical for building and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Therefore, I think it is necessary to build model points in some localities with specific goals, methods and results, on that basis, spread and replicate throughout the country, so that the building and perfecting of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is truly an important method to help implement and achieve development goals in the new era - the era of national development.
For the Judiciary, I suggest that we should pay attention to implementing the following issues well: First, promote the position and role of the Judiciary, proactively advise the Government and local Party committees to organize activities to implement Resolution 27 on the basis of new awareness of the ideology that General Secretary To Lam has directed.
One of the specific goals by 2030 mentioned in Resolution 27 is “Respecting the Constitution and the law becomes the standard of conduct for all subjects in society. The legal system is democratic, fair, humane, complete, synchronous, unified, timely, feasible, public, transparent, stable, accessible, paving the way for innovation...”.
Therefore, the Ministry of Justice will promote the role of the Central Coordinating Council for Dissemination and Education of Law (CLC) and provincial and district-level CLCs to guide and lead the dissemination and education of law as well as issues of socialist legal system to people and businesses in order to comply with the law and contribute to institutional building.
Recently, the Central Council for Legal Affairs organized the 2024 “Business and Law” Forum with the theme “Joining hands to solve legal issues, contributing to creating a favorable investment and business environment for enterprises”, demonstrating a creative and effective approach. The Forum was organized in person and online, connecting with 63 provinces and cities nationwide with more than 4,000 delegates attending, discussing extremely “hot” issues in the work of perfecting institutions and enforcing laws; is an opportunity for ministries and branches to grasp the legal issues that enterprises are facing in investment, production and business activities, thereby finding solutions to overcome institutional obstacles, perfecting the legal system in the spirit of the direction of General Secretary and President To Lam "highly unifying to determine stronger breakthroughs in development institutions, removing "bottlenecks" and barriers, taking people and enterprises as the center, mobilizing and clearing all internal and external resources, resources within the people..." at the closing session of the 10th Central Conference, term XIII.
Second, for local judiciary, it is necessary to pay attention to proposing to the Party Committee at the same level to develop an action plan related to judicial work, law and building a socialist rule of law in the direction of linking propaganda work with legal dissemination and education work to raise awareness, spread the spirit of respect for the Constitution and law in society; link mass mobilization work with mobilizing people to comply with and obey the law; guide the content of grassroots Party cell activities on contents directly related to human rights, civil rights and issues affecting the rights and legitimate interests of people and businesses, issues that need to be improved in institutions, contributing to the building and perfecting of a socialist rule of law of the people, by the people, for the people under the leadership of the Party.
Thanks for sharing Deputy Minister!
