Immigration management and higher
administrative fines were among the National Assembly Standing Committee’s top
concerns as it discussed the draft Law on the Capital City yesterday, Feb 15.

Law
Committee chairman Nguyen Van Thuan, who presented the draft to the National
Assembly Standing Committee, said the draft had been amended based on
contributions from the previous working session.

Concerning immigration, many National Assembly deputies didn’t agree with
additional provisions that would tighten permanent residency registration
procedures in inner Ha Noi because that measure would not get to the root of the
problem.

The
deputies argued that the situation of overpopulation in Ha Noi was not caused
solely by permanent residency. In fact, the main reason was Ha Noi’s imminent
demand for free labour, such as scrap scavengers and care givers, who wouldn’t
necessarily know they were required to apply for residency.

Thuan
said the lax residency regulations resulted in part from the rapid pace of
population growth in Ha Noi.

“Ha Noi
is facing overloading of its infrastructure and more serious environmental
pollution,” he said.

Thuan
said to solve the overload, many concurrent measures should be taken, such as
putting a cap on the inner city population, investing in building infrastructure
in the outlying parts of the city to encourage people to move from the inner
area, as well as improving inter-connecting roads between the inner areas and
the suburbs.

“Stricter regulations on immigration may not be enough but they are necessary to
address the issue along with other measures,” he said.

Thuan
said the NA Standing Committee’s suggestion would be to keep the same
requirements as stipulated in the Residency Law for a number of certain groups
and to apply stricter requirements for people who were not in those groups.

The
specified groups were employers who were deployed or recruited on non-expired
labour contracts in the public sector, people who moved to live with their
relatives, or people who had previously secured residency certificates in the
inner city.

Truong
Thi Mai, chairwoman of the Committee for Social Affairs, said the draft law
aimed to use administrative measures to curb population growth, yet at the same
time resulted in discrimination by offering restricted choices for immigrants in
terms of health care and education.

Chairwoman of the NA Committee of Judiciary Le Thi Thu Ba said the immigration
article may fail to produce the expected outcome because people who entered Ha
Noi to make end’s meet would still have to live elsewhere because Ha Noi was a
very expensive place to live.

Le Dang
Vang, deputy chairman of the Committee for Science, Technology and Environment,
said as Ha Noi was expanding, attracting labour from outside was indispensable.

Vang
used other developed countries to illustrate the point that the bigger the
population, the more developed the capital would become.

“The
important thing is to attract human resources for the capital’s development
rather than create more cumbersome rules,” he said.

Minister
of Judiciary Ha Hung Cuong said that there would basically be strict rules
related to permanent residency registration along with temporary residency and
related services, but that stipulations in the Capital Law should be different
from the previous Residency Law.

Administrative fines

Whether
Ha Noi should be allowed to apply higher administrative fines than general
levels for violations in the fields of culture, environment, construction,
transportation and residency was also discussed.

Several
deputies said such regulations would destroy the consistency of the whole legal
system, especially when they related to citizen rights.

Thuan
said there were several administrative violations in Ha Noi as well as in other
big cities which tended to be more common than in other places, which was why
there should be stricter punishments for these particular violations.

He said
it would not violate the equality of any citizen in the eyes of law because all
violators in a particular place would receive the same punishment. In addition,
higher fines targeting a small group only aimed to deter repetition.

Chairman
of the National Assembly’s Ethnic Council Ksor Phuoc said the compiling team
should check for any conflicts in the Capital Law, especially considering 10
laws have been made related to the capital’s special status.

“If the
team doesn’t check it in advance, who will take responsibility when a conflict
emerges?” he asked.

He said
if the issue of the capital’s special status wasn’t clarified, it could turn Ha
Noi into an autonomous area.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News