Overcoming the situation of National Assembly deputies' contact with voters being "formalistic" and "monotonous"

Vice President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee To Thi Bich Chau attended the meeting.

The draft Resolution has been accepted and revised, including 7 chapters and 49 articles. Reporting at the meeting, Head of the Petition Committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee Duong Thanh Binh said that regarding the organization of voter meetings, the draft Resolution has specific regulations in the direction of enhancing the proactive and active role of National Assembly deputies in voter meetings. Suggesting and encouraging voters to express their recommendations, thoughts and aspirations on issues of concern to voters; providing full information on the results of handling and responding to voters' recommendations, promptly answering voters' concerns and recommendations; issues that voters proactively request National Assembly deputies to listen to, take note of and discuss in the content of the meeting.

Innovating the content and form of voter contact in the spirit of Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW, the Draft has added regulations on the form of online voter contact; direct voter contact combined with online; voter contact before and after the extraordinary session of the National Assembly; organizing voter contact in the situation of natural disasters, epidemics or force majeure; collecting and synthesizing voters' recommendations before and after the extraordinary session of the National Assembly to overcome the situation of "electors", "professional voters" or voter contact that is still "formal" and "monotonous".

Mr. Duong Thanh Binh reported at the meeting.

Regarding the supervision of the settlement of voters' petitions, according to Mr. Binh, the provisions on the supervision of the settlement of voters' petitions are placed in the overall process of voter contact activities, from organizing voter contact; collecting and synthesizing voters' petitions; resolving and responding to voters' petitions and supervising the settlement of voters' petitions. In the context of innovating the activities of the National Assembly in general and supervisory activities in particular in the spirit of Resolution 27/NQ-TW, the content on the supervision of the settlement of voters' petitions needs to continue to be fully, comprehensively and deeply institutionalized in the draft Resolution.

Regarding the contact with voters after the regular session of the National Assembly, there are some opinions suggesting not to regulate contact with voters after the regular session of the National Assembly. The Petition Committee finds that: the responsibility of National Assembly deputies to voters is specifically stipulated in the Constitution and the Law on Organization of the National Assembly. In addition, the implementation of contact with voters before and after the regular session of the National Assembly has been carried out in a systematic and continuous manner through many National Assembly terms, so it is necessary to continue to maintain the implementation. Regarding the limitations that have been pointed out, they can be overcome through the organization and implementation of the National Assembly Delegation in developing and implementing the program and content of contact with voters. Therefore, the Petition Committee would like to maintain the provisions as in the draft.

Regarding contact with voters outside the constituency, some opinions said that contact with voters outside the constituency, province, city where the candidate is running for election is rarely organized and is not very effective, so it is proposed to consider regulations on this contact activity. The People's Petition Committee noted that: Article 79 of the 2013 Constitution stipulates: "A National Assembly deputy is a person who represents the will and aspirations of the people in his/her constituency and of the people of the whole country"; Article 27 of the Law on Organization of the National Assembly stipulates that National Assembly deputies meet with voters in the constituency that the deputy is interested in. Therefore, contacting voters outside the constituency is a right of National Assembly deputies as stipulated by law, so it is proposed to keep it as in the draft.

Regarding the time limit for resolving and responding to voters' petitions, there is a proposal to adjust the regulations on the time limit for resolving and responding to voters from 60 days to 30 days to promptly respond to voters' petitions. The People's Petitions Committee found that the authority to resolve and respond to voters' petitions mostly belongs to state management agencies (over 95% of the total number of voters' petitions) while these agencies also have many other tasks as prescribed by law. In addition, because the content of voters' petitions is very diverse, related to many fields, with overlapping jurisdictions, research, resolution and response need enough time, especially for petitions with content on amending policies, laws, resource allocation or public investment. Therefore, the draft stipulates the above time limit as continuing to inherit Resolution 525, which is reasonable. The People's Petitions Committee proposes to keep it as in the Draft.

Regarding the deadline for submitting the report summarizing voters' opinions and recommendations of the Petition Committee to the Standing Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, Mr. Binh informed that currently, the Petition Committee helps the National Assembly Standing Committee study and summarize voters' opinions and recommendations through the activities of voters' contacts by National Assembly deputies before the session, and send them to the Standing Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee no later than 5 days before the opening day of the National Assembly session. There are opinions that the above deadline should be increased to facilitate the synthesis and completion of the report of the Presidium of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee to the National Assembly. In response to the above opinion, the Petition Committee proposed to adjust the deadline for submitting the report summarizing voters' recommendations of the National Assembly delegations: "no later than 7 days" as in the draft.

Regarding the overcoming of the situation of contacting "electors" and "professional voters", to overcome this situation in voter contact activities in recent times, the Draft Resolution has added new forms of voter contact; strengthened the proactive and active role of National Assembly deputies; supplemented content and recommendations on issues that voters proactively request National Assembly deputies to listen to, take note of, and discuss in order to basically overcome the existing problems, limit contact with voters that are still "formal", "monotonous", the situation of "electors", "professional voters".

In addition, the Draft stipulates the responsibilities of the Standing Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the People's Committee at the local level in propagating and mobilizing voters to attend the meeting. Therefore, in order to have a large number of voters attend, the role of the agency organizing the voter meeting is very important, especially in inviting and mobilizing voters to attend and arranging a suitable schedule and time for the meeting.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/khac-phuc-tinh-trang-tiep-xuc-cu-tri-cua-dai-bieu-quoc-hoi-con-hinh-thuc-don-dieu-10290987.html