President Truong Tan Sang signed an order to promulgate the newly-revised Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on Sunday, December 8. He, at the same time, issued a resolution stipulating the implementation of the Constitution, which is the amended version of the 1992 Constitution and was adopted at the 13th National Assembly’s sixth session, which ended on November 29, 2013.

The revised Constitution is divided into 11 chapters with 120 articles – one chapter and 27 articles fewer than the 1992 version.

The new Constitution continues to affirm the position of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as the vanguard of the nation, and clearly states that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is governed by law and mastered by the people.

Under the amended Constitution, Vietnam’s economy is affirmed to be a market economy with socialist orientations. The document also confirms the key role of the State-owned economic sector.

Regarding land issues, the amended Constitution says land comes under ownership by the entire people, while providing clearer land retrieval regulations.

The revised Constitution also regulates the organization of the court system, with the people’s procuracy playing the role as a constitutional basis for judiciary reform. As regards the State apparatus, the document in general inherits the State organization model stipulated in the old version, but provides better explanations about the principle that State powers are unified and decentralized to State bodies in the exercise of their legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Among the other new contents of the Constitution is the one that Vietnamese has for the first time been confirmed as the national language.