10 laws that will come into effect from the first day of the new year 2025

From January 1, 2025, 10 laws will come into effect, including: Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety 2024; Law on Roads 2024; Law on Capital City 2024; Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Guards 2024; Law on Organization of People's Courts (amended) 2024; Law on Management and Use of Weapons, Explosives and Support Tools 2024; Law on Management and Protection of National Defense Works and Military Zones 2023; Law on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Property Auction 2024; Law on Public Investment 2024; Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Securities Law, Accounting Law, Independent Audit Law, State Budget Law, Law on Management and Use of Public Assets, Tax Management Law, Personal Income Tax Law, National Reserve Law, and Law on Handling of Administrative Violations.

Add many new regulations for drivers

The Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety consists of 9 chapters and 89 articles.

The development of the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety aims to create a legal basis for ensuring road traffic order and safety, ensuring the safety of life and health for traffic participants, building an orderly, disciplined and safe society, contributing to better ensuring human rights and civil rights according to the provisions of the 2013 Constitution and commitments to implementing international treaties to which Vietnam is a member.

Notably, inheriting the prohibited acts from the 2008 Road Traffic Law, the Law stipulates the prohibition of driving a vehicle on the road with alcohol concentration in the blood or breath; prohibiting taking advantage of or abusing the task of ensuring road traffic order and safety to commit acts that violate the law, harass or infringe upon the interests of the State, the rights and legitimate interests of organizations and individuals; prohibiting the abuse of one's own position, power or profession or that of others to violate the law on road traffic order and safety or to intervene or influence the process of handling violations of the law on road traffic order and safety...

The working age for drivers of passenger cars with more than 29 seats has been increased from 2-5 years, the maximum age for men is 57 years old, and for women is 55 years old. People aged 18 and over are granted a driving license of class A1, A, B1, B, C1, and are granted a certificate of training in road traffic law to drive specialized motorbikes on the road.

Similarly, the Road Law consists of 7 chapters and 54 articles; regulating road activities and state management of road activities.

Notably, the Road Law devotes a chapter to regulating the strategic breakthrough policy mechanism for expressways, removing obstacles in mobilizing non-budgetary resources to upgrade expressways in the phased planning phase, creating a legal corridor to achieve the goal of having 5,000km of expressways nationwide by 2030.

In addition, the law allows toll collection for vehicles traveling on expressways invested, managed and operated by the State, contributing to institutionalizing the policy decided by the National Assembly in Resolution 52/2017 on the investment policy for the Eastern North-South expressways in the 2017-2020 period.

The Road Law also requires that when investing in the construction of highways, it is necessary to meet technical standards and regulations, and synchronously deploy investment in auxiliary works such as intelligent traffic systems, rest stops, vehicle load inspection stations, etc.

Prescribe special and outstanding policies for the Capital

The Law on the Capital consists of 7 chapters and 54 articles; clearly defining the position and role of the Capital; policies and responsibilities for building, developing, managing and protecting the Capital.

Building, developing, managing and protecting the Capital is a regular, direct and continuous task of all levels of government and people of Hanoi; it is the responsibility of agencies, organizations, armed forces and people nationwide.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front and its member organizations are responsible for propagating and mobilizing the people in the country and overseas Vietnamese to participate in building, developing, managing and protecting the Capital. The State prioritizes investment and attracting resources to promote the potential and strengths of the Capital to build, develop, manage and protect the Capital.

The symbol of the Capital is the image of Khue Van Cac at the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam.

Notably, the attraction and promotion of talented people is more clearly demonstrated in the law. Accordingly, Vietnamese citizens with outstanding moral qualities, qualifications, abilities, practical experience, working in the country or abroad with special works, products, achievements, merits or contributions to the development of a field or industry of the capital are considered for recruitment and acceptance as civil servants and public employees.

Add guard object

The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Guards consists of 2 articles.

Compared to the 2017 Law on Guards, the law adds the guard subjects to include the Standing Secretariat, the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, and the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuracy; adds the authority of the Minister of Public Security to decide to apply appropriate guard measures in necessary cases to protect national security, ensure social order and safety, and ensure foreign affairs for subjects not falling under the cases specified in Article 10 of the Law on Guards to be suitable for guard work and promptly meet the requirements of guard work.

The Law on Organization of People's Courts (amended) consists of 9 chapters and 152 articles; there are a number of new points related to the position, role, tasks and powers of people's courts; innovation in the organization of the court apparatus; establishment of specialized first-instance people's courts; national judge selection and supervision council; jurors, trial organization; ensuring court operations...

Notably, in order to organize the trial of the courts in a unified, scientific and effective manner, the Law on Organization of People's Courts adds a new chapter on "Organization of Trials". The content of this chapter stipulates the random selection of judges and jurors participating in the trial; the method of organizing trials at the court; regulations on courtrooms, conciliation and dialogue rooms; how to arrange courtrooms, conciliation and dialogue rooms; rules of court sessions and meetings; court protection; participation and information activities at the court session.

Perfecting the mechanism for management and use of weapons, explosives and supporting tools

The Law on Management and Use of Weapons, Explosives and Supporting Tools consists of 8 chapters and 75 articles. The Law specifically stipulates the following contents: principles of management and use of weapons, explosives and explosive precursors; prohibited acts in the management and use of weapons, explosives, explosive precursors and supporting tools; responsibilities of heads of agencies, organizations and enterprises equipped with and using weapons, explosives, explosive precursors and supporting tools. The Law also stipulates the conditions and responsibilities of persons assigned to use weapons, explosives and supporting tools.

The Law also stipulates the conditions and responsibilities of the person assigned to manage warehouses, places to store weapons, explosives, explosive precursors, and supporting tools; management and preservation of weapons, explosives, explosive precursors, and supporting tools; research, manufacture, production, repair, trading, export, and import of weapons; procedures for equipping military weapons, procedures for granting licenses to use military weapons; principles for using military weapons, cases of firing military weapons when performing independent tasks to ensure security and order...

Also effective from January 1, 2025, the Law on Management and Protection of National Defense Works and Military Zones consists of 6 chapters and 34 articles. The law is aimed at promoting the combined strength of the entire political system and the entire people in organizing and implementing the construction of an all-people national defense and people's war posture to successfully carry out the task of firmly protecting the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Fatherland in the new situation.

At the same time, strengthen measures to manage and protect national defense works and military zones; develop support policies and prioritize investment programs for socio-economic development for localities, agencies, organizations, households and individuals in areas greatly affected by socio-economic development, and restrict foreign investment; policies for areas with restricted land use rights and other legitimate rights and interests due to requirements for management, protection and safety assurance for national defense works and military zones...

Digital transformation in asset auction activities

Effective from January 1, 2025, the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Property Auction has new content related to amending and supplementing regulations on: auctioneers and property auction organizations; procedures for property auction; responsibilities of agencies, organizations and individuals in property auction activities...

Notably, the law adds a number of prohibited acts for auctioneers, auction organizations, and people with auctioned assets, such as prohibiting the creation of false lists of auction participants, creating false records, and fake records participating in auction activities, and restricting individuals and organizations from participating in auctions that are not in accordance with regulations to enhance independence, objectivity, transparency, and minimize negativity in auction activities.

The Law adds two new articles on online auctions and online auction procedures, which stipulate that online auctions are conducted through the National Property Auction Portal or online auction information page, general principles for implementing online auctions and assigns the Government to provide detailed regulations to further improve online auctions, contributing to improving objectivity, publicity, transparency, promoting the application of information technology and digital transformation in property auctions.

Similarly, the 2024 Law on Public Investment has specified five major policy groups. These are institutionalizing pilot and specific mechanisms and policies that have been permitted by the National Assembly to be applied; promoting decentralization and delegation of authority; improving the quality of investment preparation, resource exploitation, and capacity to implement public investment projects of localities and state-owned enterprises; promoting the implementation and disbursement of ODA and foreign capital plans; simplifying procedures, supplementing and clarifying concepts, terms, and regulations, ensuring consistency and uniformity of the legal system.

Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Securities Law, Accounting Law, Independent Audit Law, State Budget Law, Law on Management and Use of Public Assets, Tax Administration Law, Personal Income Tax Law, National Reserve Law, Law on Handling of Administrative Violations, including 11 articles.

The Law aims to fully institutionalize the policies and orientations of the Party and State; promote growth, control inflation and stabilize the macro-economy; promptly remove difficulties for production and business activities of people and enterprises; improve the investment and business environment. At the same time, promote decentralization and delegation of power in the development of mechanisms, policies, laws, planning, inspection and supervision; promote the simplification of administrative procedures and the development of information technology, digital transformation; eliminate the request-grant mechanism; unblock and effectively use all resources for development, taking public investment and State resources as the guide and activating all other legal resources...

The Law takes effect from January 1, 2025; however, some provisions have separate effects such as provisions on: professional securities investors participating in the purchase, transaction, and transfer of individual corporate bonds and equity; independent audit (effective from January 1, 2026); amendments and supplements to the State Budget Law (effective from the 2025 budget year); individual households with business activities on digital platforms (effective from April 1, 2025).