It is necessary to more specifically stipulate the role and responsibility of the Fatherland Front for the organization of lawyers

At the 2nd Session, the National Assembly discussed in the hall about the draft Law on Lawyers (amended).

Participating in giving opinions, delegate Nguyen Thai Hoc - Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee for Mass Mobilization, Front and Central Agencies (National Assembly Delegation of Dak Lak province) highly appreciated the drafting agency for receiving delegates' opinions discussed in groups to amend and supplement the draft Law on Lawyers.

Regarding regulations on the management of the legal profession and policies for the development of the legal profession, delegate Nguyen Thai Hoc said that one of the important principles in current law is that state management of lawyers must be closely combined, promoting the self-management role of lawyers.

But in Article 5, and in the entire content of the draft law, it does not mention and emphasize the role of self-management of lawyer organizations.

The delegate proposed that the drafting agency review and must affirm in Article 5 that the principle of state management of lawyers must be closely linked to promoting the self-management role of the lawyer organization.

In addition, delegate Nguyen Thai Hoc said that the draft law has not properly mentioned the role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front for lawyer organizations.

This delegate said that the drafting agency said that the role of the Fatherland Front is responsible for building a plan to organize the congress, personnel plans as well as performing the function of supervising the lawyer organization as a member organization.

Meanwhile, the regulations of the Politburo and current legal regulations determine that association organizations are directly under the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the agency of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front manages the associations as the governing body.

Thus, the establishment of the role and responsibility of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee with the lawyer organization in the law needs to be reviewed and mentioned more specifically" - the delegate proposed.

Delegate Nguyen Thai Hoc also expressed concern about the regulations on the Selection Council and the national exam for lawyers (stipulated in Article 10).

The delegate said that this regulation is not really convincing and there are still many different opinions. Even the name of the Selection Council and the national exam has seen contradictions.

In this article of law, the Selection Council is assigned the task of organizing the exam. Selection is different from organizing the exam" - the delegate said.

This person stated that the issue is whether the Ministry of Justice presides over the organization of the exam or the Federation of Lawyers organizes the exam.

Before 2014, the Ministry of Justice was assigned to preside over the examination of probationary lawyers and recognition of official lawyers. From 2014 to now, according to the current Law on Lawyers, the Vietnam Bar Federation is assigned the task of organizing the examination and recognition of lawyers. Thus, this amended law assigns this task to the Ministry of Justice.

Therefore, the delegate expressed "this assignment is not really appropriate in the current context". At the same time, he gave 3 specific reasons.

First, the Party and State's policy is to decentralize, delegate power, and delegate autonomy, self-management, and self-responsibility to association organizations. The Vietnam Bar Federation is a professional social organization.

Thus, this organization has the right to test and select people who meet the standards and conditions to become lawyers. What professional social organizations can do, the State should assign. Now the Ministry of Justice is doing this again, going against current law.

Second, the Federation of Lawyers is doing a good job of organizing the official lawyer recognition exam. In the report, the Ministry of Justice also said that the Federation of Lawyers has done this well in recent years.

Third, if the Bar Federation organizes the exam, the Ministry of Justice is assigned the task of inspection and supervision. Now, if the Ministry of Justice organizes the exam, who will inspect and supervise? This issue needs to be considered.

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