9
Constitutional developments in Vietnam in the first
decade of the twenty-first century
Bui Ngoc Son
i. introduction
Under the leadership of the Indochinese Communist Party (currently the
Communist Party of Vietnam), the August 1945 Revolution brought perdition upon
three-quarters of a century of French colonization in Vietnam, followed by the
promulgation of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in
November 1946 , the first constitution in the country, as well as in Southeast Asia.
In the words of Bernard B. Fall ( 1926 – 67 ), a renowned American journalist and
analyst, “the Constitution gives a generally ‘Western democratic’ impression to the
readers...It appears designed to provide ‘reader appeal’ in the Anglo-Saxon
countries, and particularly the United States.”
1
After the 1946 Western-style demo-
cratic constitution, Vietnam has experienced three constitutions enacted in 1959 ,
1980 , and 1992 , with strong influences of Soviet constitutional culture.
2
Unlike the
post-Soviet bloc of Eastern European nations and new democracies in Asia (such as
South Korea and Taiwan), Vietnam repudiated the third wave of democratization
in the late twentieth century and has consistently retained the Soviet constitutional
system established by the 1992 constitution.
The Vietnamese polity fundamentally refutes French political philosopher
Montesquieu’s idea of separation of power in favor of Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy
of unity of state power. Formally, state power in Vietnam is unified and centralized
in a hierarchical system, with the National Assembly (NA) defined by the Consti-
tution as the “the highest representative body of the people, the highest State
authority in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”^3 Other institutions locate in
(^1) Bernard B. Fall,The Viet-Minh Regime: Government and Administration in the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam(New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1956 ), pp. 13 – 14.
(^2) For constitutional history in Vietnam in general, see Mark Sidel,The Constitution of
Vietnam(Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart, 2009 ).
(^31992) constitution, Art. 83.