Nguyen, M. T. (2026).
Rethinking Vietnam’s legal system for a new development era.
Multidisciplinary Science Journal (Scopus/WoS),
Retrieved from here
Abstract
Vietnam's legal architecture is still marked by conceptual ambiguity, doctrinal fragmentation, and a strong administrative legacy that limits coherence, predictability, and adaptive capacity. This article re-examines Vietnam's legal system in light of current reform demands, especially the implementation of Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW and the broader transition toward a development-oriented and rule-of-law-based state. The study pursues three objectives: first, to synthesize major contemporary theories of the legal system; second, to assess their analytical value for Vietnam's institutional context; and third, to formulate feasible reform directions for the next stage of legal development. Methodologically, the article adopts a qualitative design that combines doctrinal analysis, structured document review, and functional comparison. The corpus includes foundational legal theory, selected Vietnamese scholarship, constitutional and legislative texts, and comparative materials from Germany, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Malaysia published or in force between 1994 and 2025. The analysis shows that Vietnam's current legal order is weakened by three interrelated problems: an underdeveloped theoretical foundation, a rigid branch-based organization that produces procedural overlap, and an overly statute-centered understanding of legal sources. In response, the article proposes five mutually reinforcing reform directions: consolidating a composite doctrinal framework centered on the rule of law, developmental law, rights-based law, risk regulation, and legal minimalism; replacing compartmentalized procedures with integrated regulatory pathways; broadening legal sources beyond statutes; strengthening compatibility review for international commitments; and transforming the electronic code into an interoperable governance platform. It further argues that these reforms will face bureaucratic resistance unless accompanied by sequencing, accountability mechanisms, judicial safeguards, and digital implementation capacity. By linking legal theory to institutional design, the article offers a more operational framework for restructuring Vietnam's legal system in the new development era.
Keywords: rule of law; plural source; regulatory minimalis; e-governance; comparative jurisprudence