National Assembly (NA) deputies on May 30 heard reports from director of the NA Office Bui Ngoc Thanh and chairman of the NA Committee for Legal Affairs Vu Duc Khien on the draft law on amendments and supplements to some articles of the NA Organisation Law.

Issued in 2001, the NA Organisation Law has served as a legal foundation for continuing to renew the activities of NA agencies, NA deputies and NA delegations. Since then, the NA has made significant progress in implementing judicial and supervisory activities and making decisions on key national issues.

However, an incomplete organisation structure and the limited number of full-time NA deputies have resulted in a work overload over the past years.

Many members from the NA Committee for Legal Affairs agreed to establish four new NA committees by separating the current Committee for Legal Affairs and the NA Committee for Economics and Budget. They also stressed the need to delegate tasks based on professional functions and ensure each agency is in charge of one or many certain areas.

People’s Aspiration Committee or NA Inspectorate
Deputy Le Manh Hung from central Ha Tinh province proposed that a Committee for People’s Aspirations be established with a high sense of responsibility to better deal with citizens’ complaints and denunciations, voters’ petitions and solutions suggested by Government agencies. He said the committee will be established from the NA Board for People’s Aspirations.

Deputy Pham Ngoc Thien from southern Bac Lieu province shared Mr Hung’s view, saying it is necessary to have such a committee to settle citizens’ increasing complaints nowadays. He said the committee will also inspect administrative petitions and petitions by groups.

However, deputy Le Van Diet from southern Vinh Long proposed that a NA Inspectorate be established rather than a Committee for People’s Aspirations. He pointed out the fact that “Once we receive people’s letters of complaints, we send them all to functional agencies to deal with. The situation remains unchanged if we upgrade the NA Board for People’s Aspirations into the Committee for People’s Aspirations.     

Full-time deputies to be increased
All deputies agreed that each locality or each NA delegation has at least one full-time deputy. For populous localities and large NA delegations, at least two full-time deputies are needed.

Deputy Son Thi Anh Hong from southern Tra Vinh province proposed increasing the number of full-time deputies in localities to two to fulfil their heavy tasks of engaging in inspection work and collecting voter opinions on draft laws, as well as other important issues.

Deputy Le Van Diet from southern Vinh Long province suggested that the number of full-time deputies should make up at least 40 percent of the total NA deputies working for NA committees.

Deputy Le Kim Toan from south-central Binh Dinh province pointed out the fact that each NA committee is responsible for various areas and that the Ethnicity Council and NA committees will find it hard to fulfil their tasks if each committee has between five to seven full-time deputies. 

Confidence vote
Many deputies shared the view that a confidence vote is a normal activity to test the NA’s confidence in posts elected and approved by the NA. It is also a channel to help Party organisations evaluate Party members’ accomplishments and devise specific measures regarding personnel work.

Deputy Hong from Tra Vinh said it is a difficult issue as it covers a wide range of activities relating to the personnel work voted for and approved by the NA. Therefore, she said, in several cases, regular voting would not reflect the true situation. She proposed that the NA conduct confidence votes when Government members commit serious mistakes. 

Deputy Toan from Binh Dinh province said that it is an important issue and that the law should make clear when such a vote must be conducted.