On the morning of June 9, continuing the 5th Session, under the direction of Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Duc Hai, the National Assembly reviewed and evaluated the Report on explanation, acceptance, and revision and the Verification Report and discussed in groups the draft Law on Land (amended).
Reporting at the meeting, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh said that the organization of public consultation on the draft Land Law (amended) will be carried out from January 3, 2023 to March 15, 2023. The Government has directed the organization of many activities to speed up the progress and ensure the quality of consultation such as: organizing working groups to inspect and urge the implementation of public consultation, and at the same time receiving direct comments from localities representing regions and areas with specific characteristics.
The organization of public opinion collection has been implemented seriously, synchronously, democratically, scientifically, publicly, transparently, in-depth, ensuring substance and effectiveness with many diverse and rich forms down to the grassroots level of communes, wards, towns, residential areas, and residential groups, mobilizing most agencies and organizations in the political system, all social strata to participate, attracting the attention of many classes of people in the country, Vietnamese people residing abroad, truly becoming a profound political activity, an important political-legal event. The opinions of the people all show deep interest, enthusiasm, and responsibility.
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Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh presented a report explaining, accepting and revising the draft Land Law (amended). Photo: quochoi.vn
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh said that, taking into account the people's opinions, a number of chapters, sections and articles have been revised and fundamentally changed in structure and content. The draft Law after completion has a structure of 16 chapters, 263 articles, of which 5 sections have been increased (section 3 of Chapter IV, section 1 of Chapter VII; sections 1, 2, 3 of Chapter XVI), 40 new articles have been added, and 13 articles have been removed compared to the draft for public opinion.
The Draft Law also adjusts the provisions of Article 17 in the direction that the Prime Minister promulgates a policy framework on land support for ethnic minorities, on that basis the Provincial People's Committee submits to the People's Council of the same level to promulgate specific policies suitable to the actual conditions of the locality, and at the same time clarifies the areas where the policy is applied; amends the provisions of Article 20 to ensure the supervisory role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front; adds provisions in Article 23 to strengthen the responsibility of the Commune People's Committee in the tasks of: managing unused land; confirming the rights of land users; participating in the process of establishing, adjusting, announcing, publicizing, and managing land use planning and plans...
In addition, the draft Law has added in Article 32 the regulation that land users who are currently leasing land from the State and paying a one-time fee for the entire lease term can choose to switch to leasing land with annual land rent and the paid land rent will be deducted from the annual land rent payable; added the regulation that public service units that are allocated land by the State without collecting land use fees and need to use part or all of the allocated area for production, business, and service provision can choose to switch to the form of leasing land from the State and paying annual land rent for that area; added the responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs and People's Committees at all levels in determining administrative boundaries in the field, establishing local administrative boundary records and the use and provision of cadastral records for land management; added the regulations on resolving administrative boundary disputes....
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Working session in the hall. Photo: quochoi.vn
Regarding land acquisition, requisition, compensation, support, and resettlement, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh emphasized that this is a content that has received many opinions from the people.
Incorporating comments, the draft Law has amended the entire content of Article 79 in the direction that the State reclaims land to implement socio-economic development projects for national and public interests in order to promote land resources, improve land use efficiency, develop modern socio-economic infrastructure, implement social security policies, protect the environment and preserve cultural heritage; specifically stipulate cases of land reclaim for types of public works in each field; reclaim land to build headquarters of state agencies, public works and some other really necessary cases.
At the same time, review and clarify cases where the State reclaims land for national defense and security purposes in Article 78; cases of land reclaim due to violations to comply with relevant legal provisions such as the Investment Law, Tax Laws, clarify the conduct of management agencies or violators in Article 81; clearly stipulate that residential land reclaim can only be carried out after completing resettlement arrangements.
Notably, the draft Law also clarifies the principles of land valuation, market land prices, land valuation bases, input information for determining land prices, and land valuation methods. It also adds provisions on land valuation consultancy.
At the same time, continue to regulate the land price list issued annually to ensure that land prices are consistent with market principles. However, supplement the provision on transitional implementation in the direction of continuing to use the current land price list until December 31, 2025 so that localities have enough time to develop and issue new land price lists in accordance with the new provisions of the Land Law. Regulate that the People's Committee at the competent level must approve specific land price decisions within no more than 180 days from the date of the decision on land allocation, land lease, permission to change land use purpose, land use extension, change of land use form, adjustment of land allocation decisions, land lease, adjustment of detailed planning, etc.
Reporting the review at the meeting, Chairman of the Economic Committee Vu Hong Thanh said that the Committee highly appreciated the Government for directing the Drafting Agency and ministries and branches to urgently study and absorb many opinions of the People, opinions of National Assembly deputies and opinions of National Assembly agencies to revise the draft Law with important progress in quality; the documents submitted to the National Assembly at the 5th Session were seriously and elaborately prepared, many contents were absorbed and explained.
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Chairman of the Economic Committee Vu Hong Thanh presents the Inspection Report. Photo: quochoi.vn
In order to achieve the highest consensus and unanimity when passing the draft Law, the Economic Committee proposes to specify in the Law only the contents of Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW that are mature and clear enough. For the contents that need further research, practical conditions do not allow for immediate regulation in the Law for submission to the National Assembly for approval, the Government is requested to coordinate in reporting to competent authorities during the process of finalizing the draft Law.
Regarding practical issues that have arisen but have not been summarized, and therefore have not been mentioned in Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, the research and impact assessment process shows that there is a reasonable basis and it is necessary to supplement regulations. It is recommended that the Government Party Committee report to the competent authority for comments, as a basis for completing the draft Law.
On the other hand, if the contents have been summarized but have not reached consensus, there are still different opinions, and the theoretical and practical basis is not mature enough, and therefore, cannot be concluded in Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, it is proposed not to include them in the draft Law.
In addition, continue to review relevant laws, carefully assess their impacts, promptly propose amendments, supplements, and repeals to specify in Section 2, Chapter XVI of the draft Law. For draft Laws already included in the Law and Ordinance Development Program, especially draft Laws submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and approval at the 5th Session, it is recommended to continue reviewing and revising relevant provisions and propose amendments to the Land Law (if any) according to the principle of ensuring consistency with the scope of regulation in each Law, not repeating in this Law the provisions of other Laws and vice versa, but having provisions referencing the implementation according to the provisions of other relevant Laws; submit to the National Assembly for consideration according to regulations.
Regarding some major contents of the draft Law, related to the principles of planning and land use planning, the Chairman of the Economic Committee proposed to complete Clause 9, Article 60 in the direction that "land use plans can be made at the same time; higher-level land use plans must be approved and decided before lower-level plans". At the same time, to avoid the situation where higher-level plans are completed late, affecting the progress of completing lower-level plans, the Government needs to have solutions to direct and operate according to a suitable roadmap right in the planning step to avoid repeating the above problems.
Regarding land recovery for socio-economic development in the national and public interest, the Economic Committee proposes to review the provisions at Point e and Point g, Clause 3, Article 79, not to refer to provisions in other articles and clauses, but to have specific and clear provisions right in Article 79. In addition, continue to review the provisions at other points and clauses of this Article, ensuring completeness and clarity. Land recovery in these cases is only carried out when associated with a specific project.
At the same time, it is recommended to review Article 80 on the conditions for land recovery for national defense, security, and socio-economic development purposes for national and public interests to ensure compliance with the provisions of Clause 3, Article 54 of the 2013 Constitution, not only requiring the determination of cases of recovery that must be stipulated in the Law but also requiring that such cases must be "truly necessary".
Regarding the issuance of Certificates to households and individuals using land without documents on land use rights, the draft Law approaches in the direction of stipulating an extension of the time limit for land use to consider granting Certificates to land users. In addition, the draft does not clearly state that the issuance of certificates is linked to the condition of not violating land laws. The Economic Committee recommends continuing to carefully review, avoiding the situation that can be exploited to legalize violations in land use; consider and clarify the necessity of this being a provision to resolve individual cases or a general provision of the Law.
Regarding the regulations on principles, bases, and methods of land valuation, the Economic Committee believes that the provisions in the draft Law on "land valuation methods based on market principles" are not really clear, and do not ensure a complete and comprehensive institutional framework as required by Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW on maximizing the value of land resources, and financial policies on land must ensure the harmony of interests of the State, land users, and investors.
Land is an important resource for the country's socio-economic development. When land rent, land use fees, compensation, support and resettlement costs are too high, it leads to a reduction in competition in goods and service prices, competition in attracting investment, and does not create resources for socio-economic development. Therefore, it is recommended that the Drafting Agency coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to study and edit to have regulations that ensure feasibility, supplement the principles of land valuation to ensure harmony of interests between the State, people and investors, in accordance with Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW.
Regarding the land price list, the Economic Committee basically agrees that the construction of the annual land price list ensures timely updates to land price fluctuations in the market. However, it is recommended to study to have a suitable roadmap and have a more flexible regulation plan in case the construction of the annual land price list is not completed by January 1, 2026. At the same time, it is noted that the adjustment and amendment process needs to be appropriately regulated to ensure feasibility; study to clearly regulate the content of the construction of the land price list by location to distinguish it from specific land prices and how to determine "value areas" and "standard land plots".
The Economic Committee also proposed to carefully consider the removal of regulations on land use for economic zones. Accordingly, the land use regime for economic zones has been regulated and implemented for a long time, reflected in the planning indicators and national land use plans approved by the National Assembly and allocated by the Prime Minister to localities for implementation.
In the morning working session, after reviewing and evaluating the Report on the review of the draft Law on Land (amended), delegates discussed in groups about this draft Law.
Lan Anh (synthesis)
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