Thông tư liên tịch 92/2014/TTLT-BTC-BTP-VPCP

JOINT-CIRCULAR

GUIDING THE PREPARATION OF COST ESTIMATES, MANAGEMENT AND BALANCE OF THE STATE FUNDS FOR THE PREPARATION OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS AND LEGAL SYSTEM REFINING

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 60/2003/ND-CP dated 6 June 2003 detailing and giving guidance on the implementation of the State Fund Law;

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 24/2009/ND-CP dated 5 March 2009 regarding detailed regulations and implementation of the Law on Legal Document Issuance;

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 59/2012/ND-CP dated 23 July 2012 regarding law enforcement monitoring;

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 215/2013/ND-CP dated 23 December 2013 regulating the functions, duties, authority and organizational structure of the Ministry of Finance;

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 22/2013/ND-CP dated 13 March 2013 regulating the functions, duties, authority and organizational structure of the Ministry of Justice;

Pursuant to governmental Decree No. 74/2012/ND-CP dated 29 September 2012 regulating the functions, duties, authority and organizational structure of the Government Office;

The Ministers of Finance, Justice and Government Office hereby promulgate this Joint-circular guiding the preparation of cost estimates, management, use and balance of the state funds for legal document preparation and legal system refining.

Article 1. Governing scope

This Joint-circular gives guidance on the preparation of cost estimates, management, use and balance of the state funds for legal document preparation (hereafter referred to as “documents”) and legal system refining to be carried out by various agencies, which address the following documents:

1. Laws, resolutions issued by the National Assembly.

2. Ordinances, resolutions issued by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly.

3. Orders, decisions issued by the President.

4. Decrees issued by the Government.

5. Decisions issued by the Prime Minister.

6. Resolutions issued by the Jury of the Supreme People’s Court; circulars issued by the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court.

7. Circulars issued by the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy.

8. Circulars issued by the Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies.

9. Decisions issued by the State Audit of Vietnam.

10. Inter-resolutions jointly issued by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly or Government and central authorities of socio-economic organizations.

11. Joint-circulars jointly issued by the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court and the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies and the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court, Head of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies.

12. Other legal documents promulgated in accordance with the Law on legal document issuance (excluding those issued by the People’s Councils, People’s Committees).

Article 2. Principles for preparation of cost estimates, management, use and balance of the funds

1. The funds allocated from the state budget to ensure legal document preparation and legal system refining will be included in the cost estimates for regular expenditure of the related agencies. In addition to such funds, an additional fund is allocated from the state budget to support the development of the projects related to laws and/or ordinances, including the law and/or ordinance preparation plans to be notified and provided to the agencies, units that preside the drafting, appraisal, examination of the mentioned law and/or ordinance projects.

2. Preparation of the cost estimates, management, use and balance of the funds to ensure legal document preparation and legal system refining will adhere to the State Budget Law, detailing and/or guiding documents regarding the enforcement of the State Budget Law and this Joint-circular.

3. Fund allocation to ensure legal document preparation and legal system refining for related agencies, units will adhere to the official and supplemented programs and/or plans of the year, assured to be in line with the action plan progress and within the allocated fund. In case a legal document is to be issued urgently, not yet scheduled in the annual legal document preparation plan of the National Assembly, Government and in case a legal document scheduled for issuance is delayed till the following year or temporarily suspended, the agencies and/or units leading the drafting will timely notify such to the Ministry of Finance, National Assembly office, Government Office, Ministry of Justice for appropriate cost summarization, supplementation and modification.

4. The funds to ensure legal document preparation and legal system refining will be used for proper purposes, in accordance with the content, regimes and spending norms as regulated by the related laws on financial expenditure regimes and the regulations herein.

5. Based on estimated funds to be allocated, complication of the legal documents to be prepared and planned legal system refining to be executed, the heads of related agencies and/or units, assigned to take the lead, will make appropriate decisions on specific allocation of the fund norms.

Article 3. Activities and cost items for legal document preparation and legal system refining

1. The activities related to legal document preparation and legal system refining to be funded from the state budget include:

a) Study and/or preparation of the legal document preparation proposals;

b) Proposals related to law, ordinance preparation plans; tentative governmental decree preparation plans; legal document preparation plans of related ministries and/or departments and task assignment;

c) Actual surveys, study, evaluation and/or summarization during the preparation of the proposals on legal document preparation, drafting and law enforcement;

d) Legal document drafting;

dd) Evaluation on the legal document effects;

e) Opinion polls on legal document projects, draft legal documents; polls addressing the vulnerable subjects directly affected by the mentioned projects and draft documents;

g) Commenting, appraising the legal document projects, draft legal documents;

h) Examination by the Government Office of the legal document projects, draft legal documents;

i) Legal document review and/or systemization to directly support the legal document preparation and legal system refining;

k) Legal document announcement;

l) Translating legal documents into foreign languages, ethnic minority languages;

m) Evaluation of the post-enforcement effects;

n) Monitoring and/or evaluation on law enforcement.

2. Depending on the nature, complication of every activity related to legal document preparation and legal system refining as defined in Clause 01 of this Article, the agencies and/or units assigned to take the lead will make payment for the following items:

a) Collecting, review and evaluating the legal documents;

b) Translating, editing the materials, documents in foreign language, ethnic minority languages into Vietnamese and vice versa;

c) Actual theoretic study, evaluation and summarization of the issues related to the process of legal document preparation and legal system refining;

d) Inspection, surveys of the issues related to the process of study, preparation of legal document proposals; making proposals and/or preparing legal document preparation plans; evaluating the effects of legal documents; drafting the legal documents;

dd) Organizing meetings, workshops, discussions, seminars to directly support the activities related to legal document preparation and legal system refining;

e) Preparing the drafts, written explanations, written submission; various reports on theoretic study and making actual evaluation and/or summarization; the reports on legal document effects; draft proposals on legal document preparation; draft proposals and/or plans related to legal document preparation and legal system refining;

g) Remuneration payable to the people involving in the research and/or consulting related to legal document preparation and legal system refining;

h) Allowances related to comments and/or consultation on legal document preparation proposals; proposals on, plans for legal document preparation; comments, appraisal and/or examination of legal document projects, drafts;

i) Organizing workshops for draft legal document introduction, opinion polls from the public and the subjects directly affected by the such legal documents;

k) Amending and/or refining various drafts, written explanations, written submissions; reports; draft legal document preparation proposals; drafting the legal document preparation proposals, plans and drafts;

l) Costs on activities related to the announcement of the laws, ordinances and legal documents signed by the competent authorities for promulgation;

m) Organizing the post-enforcement evaluation of the document effects;

n) Organizing the monitoring of law enforcement situation;

o) Printing, photostatting, buying required documents and other necessary costs to directly support the activities related to legal document preparation and legal system refining.

Article 4. Limits on expenditures on activities related to legal document preparation and legal system refining

Limits on particular expenditures on activities related to legal document preparation and legal system refining which are covered by the state budget are specified below:

1. Expenditures on preparation of detailed legal document drafting plans

a) With regard to laws, ordinances:

Project on replacing or drafting a new law/ordinance: up to VND 4,500,000/ plan;

Projects on amended and/or supplemented laws, ordinances: up to VND 3,800,000/ plan;

b) With regard to to resolutions issued by the National Assembly, Standing Committee of the National Assembly; governmental decrees, inter-resolutions jointly issued by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly or Government and the Central agencies of socio-political organizations:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 3,000,000/ plan;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document preparation: up to VND 2,300,000/ plan;

c) With regard to to decisions issued by the Prime Minister:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 2,300,000/ plan;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 1,500,000/ plan;

d) With regard to to joint-circulars jointly issued by the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court and Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies and the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court and/or the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; different Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 1,500,000/ plan;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 1,000,000/ plan;

dd) With regard to to circulars issued by Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies; resolutions by the Jury of the Supreme People’s Court, circulars of the Judge of Supreme People’s Court; circulars by the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; decisions by the State Audit of Vietnam:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 1,000,000/ plan;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 800,000/ plan;

2. Costs for legal document drafting

a) With regard to to laws, ordinances:

New or replaced law, ordinance drafting projects: up to VND 12,00,000/ plan;

Projects on amended and/or supplemented laws, ordinances: up to VND 7,500,000/ plan;

b) With regard to to resolutions issued by the National Assembly, Standing Committee of the National Assembly; governmental decrees, inter-resolutions jointly issued by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly or Government and the Central agencies of socio-political organizations:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 7,500,000/ draft document;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 4,500,000/ draft document.

c) With regard to to decisions issued by the Prime Minister:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 6,000,000/ draft document;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 3,000,000/ draft document.

d) With regard to to joint-circulars jointly issued by the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court and the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies and the Judge of the Supreme People’s Court and/or the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; different Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 4,000,000/ draft document;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 2,000,000/ draft document;

dd) With regard to to circulars issued by Ministers and/or Heads of ministerial-level agencies; resolutions by the Jury of the Supreme People’s Court, circulars of the Judge of Supreme People’s Court; circulars by the Director of the People’s Supreme Procuracy; decisions by the State Audit of Vietnam:

New or replaced legal document drafting: up to VND 3,000,000/ draft document;

Amended and/or supplemented legal document drafting: up to VND 2,000,000/ draft document;

3. Preparation costs of the reports to support legal document drafting and legal system refining

a) Summary comment reports; reports on explanation, comment and/or appraisal comment internalization: up to VND 1,500,000/ report

b) Reports on comments, evaluation from critics, from members of the appraisal committee, from workshops as ordered by the leading drafting agencies and/or units:

New or replaced law and/or ordinance projects: up to VND 1,500,000/ report;

Amended/supplemented law and/or ordinance projects: up to VND 1,000,000/ report;

Remaining legal documents: up to VND 800,000/ report;

c) Reports on legal document effect evaluation:

Preliminary reports on legal document effects: up to VND 4,000,000/ report;

Overall reports on legal document effects: up to VND 5,000,000/ report;

Detailed reports on legal document effects: up to VND 6,000,000/ report;

d) Reports on law enforcement monitoring:

Summary reports on law enforcement monitoring to be submitted by the Ministry of Justice, as the leading agency, to the Government: up to VND 12,000,000/ report;

Annual reports on law enforcement monitoring prepared by Ministries and regulatory bodies: up to VND 8,000,000/ report;

Specialized reports on law enforcement monitoring: up to VND 5,000,000/ report;

Ad-hoc reports on law enforcement monitoring: up to VND 3,000,000/ report;

4. Drafting costs of commenting documents, legal document appraisal and/or verification reports

a) Commenting documents:

New or replaced law, ordinance preparation projects: up to VND 1,000,000/ document;

Projects on amended and/or supplemented laws, ordinances: up to VND 700,000/ document;

Remaining legal documents: up to VND 500,000/ document;

b) Appraisal and/or examination reports:

Law, ordinance preparation projects: up to VND 1,500,000/ report;

Preparation of the circulars, decisions issued by the State Audit of Vietnam: up to VND 500,000/ report;

5. Modification for finalizing research outlines, reports, written explanations, written submissions: up to VND 500,000/ modification time.

6. Modification of draft legal documents: up to VND 600,000/ modification time.

7. Allowances payable to individual attendants of meetings, workshops, discussions, seminars and press conferences

a) Attendants of meetings, workshops, discussions and/or seminars to support project drafting and/or planning, legal document effect evaluation, legal document commenting, appraising and/or examination; law enforcement enquiries, surveys, monitoring and/or evaluation:

Presiding attendants: up to VND 150,000/ attendant/ meeting;

Attendants: up to VND 100,000/ attendant/ meeting;

Written opinions of attendants: up to VND 500,000/ document;

b) Attendants of press conferences to announce the laws, ordinances and legal documents signed by the competent authorities for promulgation:

Presiding attendants: up to VND 150,000/ attendant/ meeting;

Attendants: up to VND 70,000/ attendant/ meeting;

8. Costs for legal document translation and editing

Translating legal documents from a foreign language to Vietnamese: up to VND 120,000/ page (350 words);

Translating legal documents from Vietnamese to a foreign language: up to VND 150,000/ page (350 words);

Translating legal documents from Vietnamese to an ethnic minority language: up to VND 100,000/ page (350 words);

Editing the translated legal documents: up to VND 40,000/ page (350 words);

With regard to unpopular languages, translation costs may be increased by up to 30% compared to the above-mentioned translation rates.

9. Allowances payable to independent specialists’ consultation

In cases of legal document preparation proposals; document preparation proposals and/or plans; legal document explanation, submission, drafting and specialized reports, on complicated fields which require consultation and/or critics from independent specialist, the maximum expenditure is VND 1,000,000/ report.

10. In addition to the funds applicable to the cost items as defined in Clauses 1 – 9 of this Article, other expenditures shall conform to the current spending regulations, including:

a) Traveling allowances payable to governmental staff traveling locally, costs for organizing meetings, workshops, discussions, preliminary summary and/or summary meetings will conform to the regulations on travel expenses, workshop organization costs applicable to governmental agencies and non-income generating public units issued by the Ministry of Finance ;

b) The costs for arranging overseas travels of overseas survey teams will conform to the regulations issued by the Ministry of Finance regarding travel expense regimes applicable to governmental officials, civil servants taking short overseas mission trips and subsidized from the state budget;

c) The costs for organizing enquiries and/or surveys, sociological surveys will conform to the regulations issued by the Ministry of Finance which give guidance on the management, use and cost balance for the enquiries subsidized from the state budget;

d) The costs for establishing computerized database to support legal document preparation and legal system refining will conform to the regulations issued by the Ministry of Finance which give guidance on the expense norms for e-news establishment based on information technology and the current regulations on information technology, database establishment and management;

dd) The costs for specialized subject researches and/or preparation to support legal document preparation and legal system refining; written explanation and/or submission preparation; preparation of legal document proposals; preparation of legal document preparation proposals and/or plans; preparation of law enforcement monitoring reports, will conform to the regulations issued by the Ministries of Finance, Science and Technology which give guidance on the funds for cost estimate preparation and allocation to scientific and technological plans and/or projects subsidized from the state budget;

e) The costs for reviewing, systemizing legal documents to directly support the legal document preparation and legal system refining will conform to the regulations issued by the Ministries of Finance and Justice which give guidance on the management and use of funds for checking and/or handling legal documents.

Article 5. Funds for fund allocation to support legal document preparation and legal system refining

1. The funds for allocation to support the legal document preparation and legal system refining will be based on the activities, cost items, expense limits defined in Articles 3 and 4 herein, as follows:

a) With regard to to governmental decrees, the maximum fund is VND 38 million draft legal document with complicated content, requiring opinions only from selected Ministries, Central-level departments, and VND 60 million/ draft legal document with complicated content, requiring opinions from various Ministries, Central-level departments, unions and local authorities. In case the draft decrees require poll meetings on large scale and multi-time, the funds will be decided by the heads of the leading agencies and/or units assigned to involve in the drafting and/or preparation, within the allocated regular fund according to the cost estimate;

b) With regard to to decisions issued by the Prime Minister, draft resolutions by the Jury of the Supreme People’s Court, inter-resolutions: the maximum fund is VND 30 million/ draft document with less complicated content, or requiring less poll meetings, and maximum VND 50 million/ draft legal document with less complicated content or requiring multiple poll meetings;

c) With regard to to circulars, joint-circulars, decisions issued by the State Audit of Vietnam: the maximum fund shall be VND 15 million for a draft document with less complicated content and/or limited governing scope, and VND 30 million/ draft legal document with complicated content, nationwide scope and/or requiring multiple poll meetings;

d) With regard to to law and/or ordinance projects, funds shall be allocated/provided according to the complication of each of such projects.

2. In addition to the funds defined in Clause 01 of this Article, based on fund affordability, in required cases, the heads of the leading agencies and/or units will arrange, allocate addition fund from the given regular budget to support the related activities of the legal document preparation and legal system refining process.

Article 6. Cost estimate preparation, management, use and statement/finalization of funds for legal document preparation and legal system refining

1. Cost estimate preparation, cost management for the legal document preparation and legal system refining will be carried out as follows:

a) Yearly, based on the assigned functions and/ duties, the activities and/or cost items defined in Article 3 and the funds regulated in Article 4 herein, related agencies and/or units will prepare detailed cost estimates for the legal document preparation and legal system refining, consolidating such costs to the annual regular cost estimates to submit to the Ministry of Finance for appraisal and summarization before submitting to the Government and National Assembly for decision in accordance with the State Budget Law;

b) Fund allocation to ensure legal document preparation and legal system refining will conform to the regulations defined in the State Budget Law;

c) The allowances provided to the agencies assigned to take the lead in Law, Ordinance preparation, appraisal and/or examination included in the Law, Ordinance preparation program, annually adopted by the National Assembly, will be arranged as follows:

Based on the estimated funds to support the agencies assigned to take the lead in Law, Ordinance preparation, evaluation and/or examination included in the Law, Ordinance preparation program adopted by the National Assembly and undertaken by the National Assembly Office; the Ministry of Finance will submit the mentioned allowances to the Prime Minister for consideration, approval. After the approval is obtained, the Ministry of Finance will notify the funds for the preparation of Law, Ordinance projects to related Ministries, agencies for their action.

2. Use and cost balance of the funds for the legal document preparation and legal system refining will be carried out as follows:

a) The costs for the legal document preparation and legal system refining will be paid in lump sum based on the final products attached with detailed financial statements, including cost items and amounts, as defined herein, without invoices and/or payment proofs attached;

b) In the legal document preparation and legal system refining duties are not fulfilled by the end of the year, and such pending duties are permitted by the competent authorities to be continued in the following year, corresponding funds will be carried over to the following year for use and balance;

c) The funds for the legal document preparation and legal system refining are balanced in accordance with the corresponding cost items defined in the Index of the state budget.

Article 7. Implementation provisions

1. This Joint-circular takes effect as of 01 September 2014 and replaces Joint-circular No. 192/2010/TTLT-BTC-BTP-VPCP dated 2 December 2010 issued by the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Government Office which gives guidance on the preparation, management, use and balance of the state budget to support the legal document preparation and legal system refining.

2. The costs for 2014 legal document preparation and legal system refining will be proactively arranged by related agencies and/or units within their 2014 estimated funds allocated by the competent authorities for their activities.

3. During the implementation, in case of difficulties, entanglements, related agencies and/or units are requested to report timely to the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Government Office for further study for appropriate amendment and/or supplementation./.