Amending the Law on Information Access, expanding people's right to access information

Expanding people's access to information

On the morning of April 9, continuing the First Session, the National Assembly listened to Minister of Justice Hoang Thanh Tung, authorized by the Prime Minister, presenting a report on the draft Law on Access to Information (amended).

Minister of Justice Hoang Thanh Tung said that the amendment of the draft Law aims to further institutionalize the Party's guidelines and policies on widely promoting socialist democracy, the people's right to mastery, ensuring citizens' right to access information; strengthening accountability, publicity, and transparency in the operation of state agencies and public service units, contributing to preventing and combating corruption, negativity, and wastefulness.

The draft Law consists of 4 chapters, 31 articles (reducing 1 chapter, 6 articles compared to the Law on Access to Information in 2016). Some basic contents of the Law on Access to Information (amended) include: Amending regulations on the names and responsibilities of agencies to be consistent with the name and organizational model after arrangement (for example, the Office of the National Assembly Delegation and the Provincial People's Council); Adjusting the scope of information that the Commune-level People's Committee is responsible for providing (Article 10); not specifically stipulating the focal agency for providing information as in Clause 2, Article 9 of the current Law, but stipulating that the Provincial-level People's Committee and the Commune-level People's Committee determine the focal unit for providing information to citizens (points d and e of Clause 2, Article 10).

The draft Law also amends the regulations on information that citizens are not allowed to access and information that citizens are allowed to access conditionally (Articles 15 and 16) to ensure more specific, complete, clearer and consistent with the provisions of relevant laws. Access to information belonging to personal data is carried out in accordance with the provisions of law on personal data protection. Conditional access to rare archival documents is carried out in accordance with the provisions of law on archives...

Continue to review, research, and supplement information that must be made public on digital platforms

In the thẩm tra report, Chairman of the Law and Justice Committee Phan Chi Hieu said that the Committee basically agreed with the contents of the draft Law but proposed to continue to study and expand the scope of regulation for other organizations that use state budget, finance, and public assets (such as socio-political organizations; mass organizations assigned tasks by the Party and State...) to ensure meeting the increasing information access needs of citizens.

Regarding information not accessible (Article 15) and information accessible under conditions (Article 16), the draft stipulates 6 groups of information not accessible and 4 groups of information accessible under conditions. The Law and Justice Committee basically agreed but proposed to carefully review qualitative terms such as "dangerous", "internal matters" to avoid causing difficulties when implementing.

The thẩm tra agency also proposed that the drafting agency study and supplement other vulnerable groups (such as the elderly, the poor, children, people in difficult circumstances...) to also apply the specific regulations in Article 7, better ensuring citizens' right to access information.

Continue to review, research, and supplement information that must be made public on digital platforms; information that citizens cannot access and can access conditionally to ensure synchronization with current laws and better ensure citizens' right to access information.

Continue to review and revise some contents of the draft Law in the direction of general and principled regulations and assign the Government to specify and guide implementation to properly implement the requirements of innovating thinking in law-making...

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