I The article analyzes the concept and role of scientific nature in law-building; evaluates the current state of applying scientific elements; and thereby proposes some solutions to enhance the scientific nature in the law-building process in Vietnam.
Keywords: Law-building, scientific nature, legislation, legal policy.
Law-building is an activity of special importance in state management and regulation of social relations. Laws can only truly fulfill their effectiveness when built on a scientific basis, correctly reflecting the laws of social life movement and suitable to reality. However, in practice, there are still legal documents lacking feasibility, overlapping, or quickly becoming outdated. This poses the requirement to further enhance the scientific nature in the current law-building process.
CONCEPT AND ROLE OF SCIENTIFIC NATURE IN LAW-BUILDING
1. About scientific nature in law-building:
It is the promulgation of laws based on: Scientific theoretical basis (legal, economic, sociological...); Reliable practical data; Policy impact analysis and forecasting; Logical, transparent process with verification. The common goal is to ensure laws are suitable to reality, feasible, stable and effective.
2. Role of scientific nature in law-building:
- Law-building is an important activity of the State to promulgate general rules of conduct to regulate social relations. In this process, scientific nature plays a particularly important role, determining the quality and effectiveness of the legal system.
- Scientific nature helps laws correctly reflect social reality. Building laws based on scientific research, practical investigation and survey will help regulations suit socio-economic conditions, customs, habits and people's needs. Thereby, laws are not subjective or imposed.
- Scientific nature ensures logic, unity and rigor of laws. Legal norms built on scientific theoretical basis will avoid contradictions and overlaps between legal documents, making the legal system clear, easy to understand and easy to apply.
- Scientific nature contributes to improving the effectiveness of law enforcement. When laws are built scientifically and reasonably, people easily access and voluntarily comply, while state agencies find it more convenient to organize implementation and social management.
- Scientific nature helps laws have stability and forecasting ability. Legal regulations based on scientific analysis will have long-term vision, limiting frequent amendments and supplements, while creating a solid legal basis for sustainable social development.
Through this, it shows that scientific nature is an indispensable factor in law-building. It contributes to creating a legal system suitable to reality, effective in implementation and meeting the country's development requirements.
BASIC ELEMENTS TO ENHANCE SCIENTIFIC NATURE IN THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH AND LAW-BUILDING
In the context of a rule-of-law State and increasingly deep international integration, laws are not only a tool for social management but must also correctly reflect the laws of socio-economic life movement. Therefore, enhancing scientific nature in research and law-building is an inevitable requirement, contributing to ensuring the quality, effectiveness, and feasibility of the legal system. Scientific nature is manifested in laws being built on a solid theoretical basis, reliable practical data and appropriate research methods. The basic elements to enhance scientific nature include:
1. Ensuring scientific theoretical basis in legal research: Theoretical basis is the foundation orienting the law-building process. Correctly researching and applying legal doctrines, rule-of-law principles, human rights and modern state governance helps laws have systematic, logical and stable nature. In addition, avoid building laws with subjective empirical nature, lacking scientific arguments, leading to contradictions or overlaps in legal norms.
2. Starting from reality and requirements for regulating social life: Scientific nature of laws cannot be separated from reality. Sociological investigation, summarization of law enforcement practice, analysis of social relations needing regulation are important factors. Laws are truly scientific only when correctly reflecting management needs, suitable to economic, cultural, social conditions and the country's development level. If lacking practical basis, laws easily fall into formalism, difficult to apply or quickly outdated.
3. Applying modern scientific research methods: Enhancing scientific nature requires diversely and appropriately using research methods such as analysis-synthesis, legal comparison, statistics, forecasting, policy modeling. Especially, the policy impact assessment method (RIA) helps predict socio-economic influences of legal documents in advance, thereby selecting optimal legislative options, limiting risks and social costs.
4. Team of subjects participating in law-building with high qualifications and expertise: People are the central factor determining the scientific nature of laws. The cadre team researching and drafting laws needs in-depth knowledge, scientific thinking, good analysis and synthesis ability. In addition, mobilizing scientists, experts, practitioners and legal training institutions to participate in the law-building process will contribute to improving quality and objectivity of draft documents.
5. Strengthening consultation and social criticism: Scientific criticism and consultation of opinions from subjects affected by laws are important factors to ensure scientific and democratic nature. Through criticism, limitations and shortcomings in draft laws are detected and timely adjusted, helping laws closer to reality and more persuasive.
6. Selectively absorbing international legal experience and standards: In globalization conditions, referring to legislative experience of countries and international treaties is necessary. However, scientific nature is only ensured when this absorption process is selective, suitable to the country's specific conditions, avoiding mechanical copying.
Enhancing scientific nature in research and law-building is a synthesis process of many factors, from theoretical basis, social reality, research methods, to people and criticism mechanisms. Ensuring scientific nature not only contributes to building a synchronous and feasible legal system but also improves the effectiveness and efficiency of state management and promotes sustainable social development.
CURRENT STATE OF SCIENTIFIC NATURE IN THE LAW-BUILDING PROCESS
1. Achievements
In recent times, the law-building process has made many advances in methods and procedures. Collecting opinions from experts, scientists and subjects affected by laws is increasingly emphasized. Policy impact assessment activities before promulgating laws have been institutionalized and gradually implemented. Some achievements include:
- Legal basis increasingly perfected: The Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents has clearly stipulated: Policy impact assessment; Collecting opinions from people and experts; Appraisal and verification of drafts. This clearly reflects requirements for scientific and objective nature.
- Strengthening theoretical research and practical summarization: Many law projects are built based on summarization of law enforcement; international legal comparison; from specialized scientific research. Thereby, the quality of many laws has been improved.
- Participation of scientific subjects expanded: There are contributions from scientists; research institutes, universities; practical experts. Thereby contributing to improving theoretical and practical nature.
2. Limitations
Besides positive results, scientific nature in law-building still has some limitations. Practical research is sometimes formalistic, lacking reliable data. Some legal documents are built in short time, without conditions for in-depth research, leading to low quality. In addition, coordination between agencies, sectors and scientific research community in the law-building process is not really effective. Specifically:
- Scientific nature not uniform among documents: Some laws and decrees are still general and unclear; must be amended soon after promulgation. This shows that scientific research and forecasting are not deep.
- Policy impact assessment still formalistic: Many assessment reports lack specific data; do not fully analyze socio-economic impacts; few policy options for comparison. Thereby reducing the effectiveness of legislative decisions.
- Opinion collection not really effective: Some cases of opinion collection are still procedural; little feedback and selective absorption; not well exploiting opinions from directly affected people. d) Research capacity and resources still limited: Cadre team doing law-building work faces great time pressure; policy analysis skills not uniform; funding for legal scientific research still limited. e) Causes of limitations: Awareness of the role of science in legislation not uniform; Coordination mechanism between management agencies and research agencies still loose; Lack of full and updated database; Impact of partial interests in some fields.
DIFFICULTIES AND ADVANTAGES IN ENHANCING SCIENTIFIC NATURE IN THE CURRENT LAW-BUILDING PROCESS
Law-building is an activity of special importance in state management and social life. A legal system to fulfill effectiveness needs to ensure scientific nature, that is, built on solid theoretical basis, suitable to reality, logical, unified, and feasible. In the current context, enhancing scientific nature in the law-building process has many advantages but also poses many difficulties that need to be recognized and resolved.
1. Advantages in enhancing scientific nature of the law-building process
- First, awareness of the role of scientific nature in law-building is increasingly improved. The Party and State have clearly defined requirements for building a rule-of-law State, in which laws must be transparent, stable and based on scientific basis. This creates an important political-legal foundation for innovating legislative thinking.
- Second, the system of law-building agencies is increasingly perfected. Legislative, executive and judicial agencies have closer coordination in the process of building and perfecting laws. The cadre team doing legal work is increasingly trained systematically with professional qualifications and practical experience.
- Third, the development of science-technology and international integration process create favorable conditions for enhancing scientific nature of laws. Accessing advanced legal models worldwide, along with applying information technology in research and policy impact assessment, helps the law-building process become more objective and effective.
2. Difficulties in enhancing scientific nature of the law-building process
Besides advantages, the process of enhancing scientific nature in law-building still faces many difficulties.
- First, social reality changes rapidly and complexly, while laws often have certain lag. This makes forecasting and fully assessing social impacts of laws face many limitations, reducing scientific nature and stability of legal documents.
Second, the quality of research, practical summarization and policy impact assessment in some fields is still limited. Many legal documents still bear empirical nature, not built on profound scientific research basis, leading to overlaps, lack of unity or difficult application.
Third, human resources doing law-building work are not really uniform. Some cadres still lack research and policy analysis skills, not keeping up with increasingly high requirements of legislative process in new conditions.
To enhance scientific nature in the law-building process, strengthen theoretical research and practical summarization; focus on objective and comprehensive policy impact assessment. At the same time, promote training and fostering of legal cadres with high professional qualifications and good professional ethics. Expanding participation of experts, scientists and people in the law-building process is also an important solution to improve quality and scientific nature of the legal system. Enhancing scientific nature in the law-building process is an inevitable requirement in the process of building a rule-of-law State and sustainable national development. Although there are still many difficulties, with existing advantages and appropriate solutions, the law-building process increasingly has conditions to achieve higher scientific nature, better meeting social reality requirements.
SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE SCIENTIFIC NATURE IN THE LAW-BUILDING PROCESS
1. Perfecting institutions and law-building procedures: Continue to perfect the legislative process towards greater transparency, rigor and scientific nature, especially the policy-building and impact assessment stages. Implement solutions:
- Legalize breakthrough mechanisms: Boldly apply experimental mechanisms (sandbox) to verify new policies.
- Reasonably decentralize power: Clearly define authority between central and local levels, avoid overlaps.
- Strengthen opinion collection: Effectively and substantially listen to reflections and proposals from enterprises and people.
2. Improving research and forecasting quality: Develop policy forecasting capacity, including: Using data and modeling to forecast policy impacts, early detect “bottlenecks”. At the same time, build a team capable of viewing issues from multiple angles, across sectors and fields.
3. Strengthening theoretical research and practical summarization: Law-building needs to be based on serious scientific research works with profound practical summarization of law enforcement, avoid building laws only based on subjective experience.
4. Promoting the role of experts and scientists: Need to create effective mechanisms to mobilize substantial participation of scientists, legal experts and interdisciplinary experts in the law-building process. Train a team with strategic thinking and ability to grasp global trends.
5. Applying technology and data: Applying information technology, big data and modern analysis methods will contribute to improving forecasting quality and scientific nature of legislative decisions. Build a modern legal information system: Support quick and effective search, analysis and evaluation of laws.
6. Innovating law enforcement work: Focus on explanation and application guidance to bring documents into life, avoid misunderstanding and misapplication. Along with strengthening inspection, review and systematization: Regularly and continuously perform to detect and amend outdated and overlapping documents. Have mechanisms to evaluate actual impacts of laws for timely adjustment.
In conclusion, enhancing the scientific nature of the law-making process is an objective, urgent and long-term requirement in the context of accelerating industrialization, modernization and increasingly deep international integration. Scientific rigor is not only a criterion reflecting the quality of individual legal normative documents but also an important measure of the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire legal system in state governance and social regulation. A legal system developed on a solid scientific basis helps ensure stability, transparency, feasibility and predictability, thereby creating a favorable legal environment for socio-economic development and for protecting the lawful rights and interests of the State, organizations and citizens.
To achieve this objective, renewing thinking in law-making must be given top priority, shifting from an administrative, command-based approach toward a development-oriented mindset that places people, enterprises, and social interests at the center. At the same time, the law-making process needs to be improved in a more rigorous, transparent, and scientific manner, with particular emphasis on theoretical research, the review of practical experience, policy impact assessment and broad consultation with stakeholders directly affected by legal regulations. The application of interdisciplinary research methods, both quantitative and qualitative analytical tools, as well as the use of big data and digital technologies in policy formulation, will further enhance the quality and reliability of legislative decisions.
Moreover, the active and substantive participation of the whole society, including state agencies, scholars, the business community, social organizations, and citizens is a crucial factor in ensuring the objectivity, comprehensiveness, and feasibility of laws. Mechanisms for social criticism, supervision and feedback must be implemented seriously and effectively, accompanied by clear accountability of drafting bodies.
Through the synchronous implementation of these solutions, policy- and law-making activities will become increasingly scientific and effective, providing a solid foundation for sustainable national development. This constitutes an important basis for building and improving the socialist rule-of-law state, promoting sustainable and stable development, and enhancing the quality of national governance in the new period./.
MA. Phan Dinh Khang
REFERENCES:
- Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2013.
- Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents 2015, amended and supplemented in 2020.
- Government - Decree detailing and measures to implement the Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents.
- National Assembly Office - Report summarizing law-building work (recent years).
- Ministry of Justice - Handbook on techniques for building and evaluating legal normative documents.
- Scientific nature in law-building activities (Journal of State and Law).
