The building of a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam in the Documents of the 13^th National Party Congress has been presented in a comprehensive, diverse manner with a lot of new points. Therefore, it is necessary for us to be more fully aware of this task.

According to the 13^th National Party Congress, “there has been many positive changes in building a socialist rule-of-law State, the state apparatus has continued to be completed and operated more efficiently and effectively, and we have guaranteed legislative, executive, and judicial powers synchronously.” The method of building a socialist rule-of-law State has been gradually adjusted to be relevant to the country’s development and international practices. However, “the building of a socialist rule-of-law State has yet to sufficiently satisfy the requirements set by national socio-economic development and management in the new situation.” Hence, the 13^th National Party Congress has determined to “continue building a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam.” The Political Report and the Socio-Economic Development Strategy between 2021 and 2030 have both mentioned the building of a socialist rule-of-law State. More specifically, the chapter XIII of the Political Report and the item 10 of the Chapter V of the Socio-Economic Development Strategy have been centred around the task of building a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam. Besides, the Political Report has referred to this issue right at the theme of the Congress and in its chapters, namely Realisation of the 12^th National Party Congress Resolution, (5^th) Viewpoint, (10^th and 12^th) National Development Orientations, (1^st and 5^th) Central Tasks, and (1^st) Strategic Breakthrough. That has proved the Party’s special interest in the building of a socialist rule-of-law State.

The 13^th National Party Congress has also identified the position of the building of a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam and solutions to perform this task with new qualitative developments. Regarding the position of the task, according to the Congress Documents, “continuing to build and perfect a socialist rule-of-law State of the people, by the people, and for the people under the Party’s leadership is a central task of the political system reform.” This could be seen as the realisation of the first element of the Congress theme: “Strengthening the building and rectification of the Party and the political system into purity and strength.” The socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam is a fundamental component of the political system and plays a decisive role in realising the Party’s viewpoints, guidelines and resolutions. Therefore, a part from the Party building, our Party has always attached special importance to building a socialist rule-of-law State as a central task of the political system reform. The 13^th National Party Congress has comprehensively mentioned the contents and methods of building a professional, modern socialist rule-of-law State. In this regard, emphasis has been placed on building, completing and strictly maintaining the legal system, satisfying the requirements set by the building of a socialist rule-of-law State for national construction and defence and international integration, building institutions of the state apparatus, such as National Assembly, Government, local authorities, and judicial offices, and building a contingent of cadres and officials within the state apparatus.

First Meeting of the Steering Board on Designing Specialised Topics under the Project to “Build and Complete a Socialist Rule-of-Law State of Vietnam towards 2030, with a vision towards 2045”

To ensure the political nature of the socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam, the 13^th National Party Congress has confirmed that such a State must be “of the people, by the people, and for the people under the Party’s leadership.” The Party’s leadership over the socialist rule-of-law State is in accordance with the Article 4 of the Constitution of 2013, while ensuring that the organisation and operation of the state apparatus would be relevant to the Party’s guidelines and ours would be a State of the people, by the people, and for the people. To build the political nature of the State, according to the Congress Documents, legislation must “take the legitimate rights and benefits of the people and enterprises as a driving force for renewal and creativity. The National Assembly’s legislation must “respect, guarantee, and protect human and civil rights.” Emphasis should be placed on “building a state administration for serving the people” and a judiciary system for “serving the Homeland and the people.” Judicial activities must “protect justice, human rights, civil rights, the socialist regime, the State’s benefits, and legitimate rights and interests of organisations and individuals.” Besides, it is essential to “build a contingent of cadres and officials with sufficient qualities, capabilities and prestige to serve the people and national development.”

One of the most noticeable points in the building of a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam mentioned in the 13^th National Party Congress Documents is the ideology on the rule of law. This ideology has been employed to overcome weaknesses pointed out by the Congress: “in general, the observance of law has yet to be strict, the rule of law in some places have yet to be taken seriously, the handling of violations of law has yet to be timely, and punishments have yet to be deterrent enough.” Therefore, the rule of law together with a perfected legal system will be an incentive to building a healthy, disciplined society for the sake of “wealthy people, strong nation, democracy, equality, and civilisation.” The rule of law has been emphasised in many parts of the 13^th National Party Congress Documents. In the 12^th national development orientation, the 13^th National Party Congress has supplemented the 10^th major relationship between “practice of democracy and consolidation of legislation - social discipline assurance.” Besides, in the Chapter XIII of the Documents, the principle of the rule of law to ensure state agencies’ legislative, executive, and judicial powers and build a public administrative system has been underlined.

With reference to the building of institutions of the socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam, according to the 13^th National Party Congress, it is essential to continue renewing the organisation and operation of the National Assembly, increase its professionalism and efficiency, promote democracy and the rule of law in performing its legislative, supervisory functions and deciding the country’s major issues, and ensure that it will always the people’s highest-level representative body and the highest organ of state power. “Properly increasing the number of dedicated deputies and decreasing the quantity of deputies working within executive and judicial agencies” represent a new point in the organisation of the National Assembly. Doing so will greatly contribute to raising the National Assembly’s operation quality, particularly in its legislation and law enforcement supervision. As for the National Assembly’s legislative function, according to the Congress Documents, it is necessary to continue improving the quality of legislation and “building a uniformed, synchronous, feasible, open, transparent, stable, and internationally competitive legal system.” Mentioning the legal system’s “international competitiveness” is a new point of the Congress Documents in accordance with the country’s wider and deeper integration into the world. For that reason, it is important to design legal documents to protect an independent, self-reliant economy in the process of international integration, while due attention should be paid to “internalising” international treaties, especially the new-generation free trade agreements to which Vietnam is a signatory.

The 13^th National Party Congress has advocated continuing renewing the organisation and operation of the Government in a compact, efficient, effective fashion so as to build a democratic, rule-of-law, professional, modern, pure, strong, transparent public administrative system for serving the people, with a focus on building a Government of “innovation, integrity, and action.” During this term, it is essential to clearly identify responsibilities between the Government and ministries and sectors as well as between the Government and local authorities. At the same time, great value should be attached to promoting proactiveness, creativity, and responsibility of each authority and sector, improving the quality of public services, rearranging public non-business units in a compact, efficient way, and building an e-Government for the development of the digital economy.

According to the 13^th National Party Congress, we shall “continue building a professional, modern, equal, strict, honest judicial system of Vietnam for serving the Homeland and the people” as an important part of the building of the socialist rule-of-law State. In comparison with the 9^th Politburo’s Resolution 49-NQ/TW, the Congress Documents have included new points when emphasising professionalism, modernity, equality, and integrity.

Concerning local authorities, according to the 13^th National Party Congress, it is vital to continue completing the system of local authorities in accordance with rural, urban, sea, island areas and special administrative units. Consideration should be given to reviewing the plan on  piloting the urban governance model, while a reform in decentralising state budget to ensure localities’ self-reliance should be implemented.

To meet the requirements set by the building of a socialist rule-of-law State, the 13^th National Party Congress has underlined the building of a pool of cadres and officials with sufficient qualities, capabilities, and prestige for serving the people and the country’s development. There should be policies to recruit, train, and attract talents and protect cadres who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to take responsibility for the people’s benefits. Significance should be attached to tightening social discipline in line with a reform in salary to create a favourable condition for development. At the same time, there should be mechanisms for discharging or replacing cadres with poor task performance or those with violation of professional morality or law.

Building a socialist rule-of-law State is a task of importance to our entire Party, Military and people. Grasping and effectively realising the viewpoints set by the 13^th National Party Congress will practically contribute to building a socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam.

Associate Prof. NGUYEN NGOC HOI, PhD