Article 100 of the 2013 Constitution states that 'the Government, the Prime Minister, Ministers and heads of ministerial-level agencies shall issue legal documents to exercise their duties and authorities'.
Pursuant to the Constitution, Vietnamese legal normative documents (legislation) were reorganised by the Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents (Law No 80/2015/QH13), which came into effect in July 2016. This Law prescribes the law-making process and regulates the types of legal documents. Article 4 categorises legal documents into 15 levels of the validity of which the Constitution has the highest level. The 15 levels are (with issuing Authority in brackets):
All legal documents must be published in Công Báo, the Official Gazette (Article 150 of the Law on Promulgation of Legal Normative Documents). We do not subscribe to the Gazette. The contents of each volume from 1994 to current are published in English on open access on the Official Gazette website of the Vietnam Law & Legal Forum.
There is no one place online to find all Vietnamese legal documents. We recommend the following:
3. The Vietnam Laws Online (produced by law firm Allens) (UniMelb staff & student access) includes laws relevant to those doing business in Vietnam, such as foreign investment, commerce, banking and finance, and business laws.The database can be searched by subject category, keyword, issuing-body, date, legislation type, or official number. Note that the English translations on this website are unofficial.