A Critique of the 2013 Vietnamese Constitution

(Together with an English translation of the complete constitution)

Tang Duc Dao, Solicitor

A critique of the 2013 Vietnamese Constitution by Tang Duc Dao 

Preface

 

Vietnam is well into the twenty first century. Other nations in its neighborhood, especially those with the same cultural heritage such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong-Kong or Singapore have truly surged ahead economically and have triumphed over dictatorships, colonialism and abject poverty.

Yet Vietnam as a nation still lingers under the weight of poverty, corruption and a political regime hostage to a communist ideology that has been discarded by the rest of civilized humanity.

The Vietnamese people are an intelligent people, as evidenced in part by the performance of its overseas students, in international competitions, and by the outstanding success of its Diaspora all over the world. But the national community at home has been retarded by decades of misrule by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).

The Vietnam Democracy Federation has commissioned (Zuc) Tang Duc Dao, an Australian lawyer, to undertake a critical analysis of the 2013 Constitution as part of a campaign to demystify the aura of power and legitimacy the CPV has built around it through decades of political indoctrination and

propaganda. This work has been sub-divided into 3 stages:

 

1. An authentic translation into English of the complete constitution. This version is to be distinguished from the version published by the International Institute for Democratic and Electoral Change (IDEA) and from the version published by the Vietnamese National Assembly, on their respective websites.

 

2. A short bi-lingual critique of the 2013 Constitution focusing on a few key points, pending a more comprehensive analysis.

 

3. A full bi-lingual critique which incorporates the above key points in addition to various violations of principles of constitutional law and the underlying ideological causes of such violations in the 2013 Constitution.

 

We hope, with the demystification of the CPV and exposure of the 2013 Constitution as no more and no less than an instrument to consolidate dictatorship, to both the Vietnamese and international communities, we shall make a positive contribution to the process of democratic change in Vietnam.