Delegate Truong Trong Nghia: It is necessary to evaluate the cost of law making

Discussing at the National Assembly on the morning of May 24, delegate Truong Trong Nghia said that the assessment of costs and benefits when developing a law project must be considered a principle throughout the legislative work. The reason, when renewing or supplementing, amending a law costs a lot of money, going through many processes from developing a proposal, drafting, passing to implementing the law.

Costs of the law implementation process including enactment, dissemination, training, education; compliance, as the law requires notarization, removing the old form, making a new form, consulting a lawyer to understand and comply with the new law. In addition, there are costs when handling disputes and violations arising when applying the new law; handle overlaps and conflicts between the new law and the existing law, hindering economic and social relations.

“Costs arise in many forms, in many areas, including the public budget, the private sector, society and the people. However, this is often not paid enough attention,” Nghia said. In addition, there are funds from the central and local budgets; monetary and non-monetary or non-monetary; Visible and invisible costs like the social psychology of people and businesses also cause damage.

Therefore, the HCM City delegate suggested that when developing a law project, agencies should evaluate the benefits for the country, the economy, state management and people; short, medium and long term benefits; specialized and overall interests; economic, social, cultural, educational, security and defense interests; domestic and international impact.

According to Mr. Nghia, there are regulations that make interests conflict, cancel each other out, good in the short term but harmful in the long run; benefits state management but damages the people’s freedom, democracy and constitutional rights. Therefore, the National Assembly needs to require the agency submitting the legislative initiative or law project to provide quantified, objective and scientific multi-dimensional assessment information. On this basis, the Standing Committee and the National Assembly will decide whether to include the bill into the program of formulating or approving the bill.

“The National Assembly’s agencies need to invite expert reviewers, especially in comparison of costs and benefits”, Mr. Nghia said, stating the current situation when proposing legislation, impact assessment, cost information is “often overlooked, very general, mainly refers to one-way benefits, it is difficult for delegates to have enough critical information”.

There are laws that are convenient for state management agencies, but very inconvenient for people. There are laws that fall into oblivion, or function only as a kind of policy, or administrative measure, not a law in its own right. “These laws waste effort, money of the state, society and people,” Mr. Nghia said.

Vietnam is the most developed country in ASEAN, with relatively high economic growth, exports, investment attraction, and a larger economic scale than many other countries, but the people are still poor. According to Mr. Nghia, one of the reasons is that the state, businesses and people have to bear too many costs, including legislative work. Therefore, the cost assessment when formulating a law is more difficult, but the quality and efficiency are higher; people and businesses at home and abroad are more satisfied.

Delegate Le Thanh Van said that the composition of the law drafting committee should be more extensive, focusing on scientists, especially groups subject to regulation. “If the law affects them, they must be allowed to speak up, but it is not possible for tool holders to have the right to modify tools, while those affected cannot speak up,” Van said.

Delegate Van suggested that bills should be widely consulted. “The Law on Referendum has existed but has not been used. For laws that affect people’s lives, it is necessary to have a referendum, not a small, narrow form like the past,” said Mr. Van, for that it is necessary to strengthen supervision of the issuance of legal documents, to check the regulations passed by the National Assembly and the organization of implementation.

Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long said that the Government and Prime Minister this term focus on institutional building, the number of meetings on this work is very large, the way of doing it is also different, is a great effort of the Government. Government and received the consent of the National Assembly Standing Committee.

Hoang Thuy – Viet Tuan