Nguyen Minh Tuan
Rethinking Vietnam’s legal system for a new development era.
Multidisciplinary Science Journal (Scopus),
Vol. 8 Issue 11 (2026), e2026704
Published in 08 May 2026
DOI: https://10.31893/multiscience.2026704
Download click here: https://malque.pub/ojs/index.php/msj/article/view/15680/6592
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