Become a Member for $9.99/month

Hoàng Mai wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on March 3, 2025. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.

Quietly, without much public discussion, major political and ideological shifts are taking place in Việt Nam. One of the few researchers to have studied these changes in depth is Bùi Hải Thiêm of the Institute for Legislative Studies.

In a 2014 article titled “Deconstructing the ‘Socialist’ Rule of Law in Việt Nam: The Changing Discourse on Human Rights in Việt Nam's Constitutional Reform Process,” Thiêm argued that during the 2013 constitutional amendment process, the traditional socialist foundations of the constitution began to shift under the influence of new ideas. In particular, he noted that the changing discourse on human rights may have pushed beyond the rigid framework of a “socialist rule of law state,” creating a new identity for human rights in Việt Nam.

Revisiting the debates and outcomes of that reform process is essential for understanding how thinking on the constitution, the rule of law, and human rights has evolved—and how it may continue to change in the future.

The Formation of the “Socialist Rule of Law State” For much of Việt Nam's history, law played a secondary role to administrative measures and moral codes. In its early years, the Communist Party of Việt Nam continued this tradition, sidelining the legal system and even dissolving the Ministry of Justice from 1959 to 1980.

Party leaders like Hồ Chí Minh consistently emphasized governing by "revolutionary ethics," a core Confucian value. However, the disastrous Land Reform campaign from 1953–1956 forced a recognition that morality alone was an insufficient tool for governance.

In response, the Party adopted the concept of socialist legality from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, with the Third National Party Congress formally endorsing this model in 1960. The four core principles of this model were:

The Party’s comprehensive leadership. The class nature of law (as the will of the ruling class). The flexible interchange between policy and law. The primacy of collective interests over individual rights. This model began to lose dominance after the Đổi Mới reforms of 1986. Instead of discarding it, Party theorists sought to adapt it, blending elements of the Western “rule of law” model with the Soviet "law-based state" to create a uniquely Vietnamese hybrid: the socialist rule of law state.

According to the research of Bùi Hải Thiêm, this new model is essentially a rhetorical strategy. It preserves the Party’s central leadership role while harnessing the persuasive power of the “rule of law” concept, all while attempting to reconcile the deep, internal contradictions between the two ideological systems it was built from.

Centralized or Separation of Powers? The first contradiction in Việt Nam's "socialist rule of law" model is the inherent tension between the Party’s centralized leadership and the principle of a separation of powers.

For a time, it appeared the state was moving toward a clearer separation. The inclusion of the term “control of power” in the 11th Party Congress Resolution (2011) was a landmark compromise, acknowledging that state power needed to be checked. In the years prior, the Party had dissolved several powerful committees, transferring key functions to state institutions. At the same time, court reforms granted the judiciary, legislature, and executive branches greater autonomy and power.

However, these reforms proved to be fragile. In mid-2012, in a significant reversal, the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption was shifted from government authority back under the direct control of the Party. At the same time, the Party re-established two powerful commissions—the Central Internal Affairs Commission and the Central Economic Commission—that had previously been dissolved.

This reassertion of Party control had immediate consequences, hindering the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Law as Party decisions overrode legal provisions. It also sent a mixed message, casting serious doubt on the Party-state’s commitment to building a genuine rule of law state.

Constitution or Party Supremacy? The second contradiction lies in the unresolved relationship between the constitution and Party policies. On one hand, Party resolutions retain ultimate authority, with former General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng having declared that the constitution stands below the Party’s political platform.

On the other hand, the Party has increasingly emphasized the importance of the law, stressing that policies should be codified and that the state should “govern society by law” rather than by decree. Efforts have been made to transform the Constitution from a political document into a legally binding charter, with growing pressure to impose clearer legal constraints on the Party and its members to ensure equality before the law.

As state laws and institutions have begun to carry more weight, a space has opened for human rights discourse to enter reform debates. This, in turn, has brought a third fundamental contradiction to the forefront: what is the role of individual rights in a Party-state structure where ideology has always elevated collective interests above all else?