Circular No. 79/2015/TT-BTC on inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents in the financial sector

CIRCULAR
Regulations on inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents in the financial sector
obligation

THE MINISTER OF FINANCE

Pursuant to the Law on Enactment of Regulatory Legal Documents dated June 3, 2008 and guiding documents for implementation;

Pursuant to Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP dated April 12, 2010 of the Government on inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents and Circular No. 20/2010/TT-BTP dated November 30, 2010 of the Minister of Justice detailing implementation of certain provisions of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP;

Pursuant to Decree No. 99/2006/NĐ-CP dated September 15, 2006 of the Government on inspection work related to policy implementation, strategy, planning, and programs;

Pursuant to Decree No. 55/2011/NĐ-CP dated July 4, 2011 of the Government stipulating functions, tasks, and powers of legal affairs organizations;

Pursuant to Decree No. 08/2012/NĐ-CP dated February 16, 2012 of the Government promulgating the operational regulations of the Government;

Pursuant to Decree No. 215/2013/NĐ-CP dated December 23, 2013, promulgated by the Government stipulating the functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of the Ministry of Finance;

At the request of the Director of the Legal Department,

The Minister of Finance issues this Circular stipulating inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents in the financial sector.

PART I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. Scope of Regulation

Article 1. This Circular stipulates inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents in the financial sector, including inspection work related to policy implementation, strategy, planning, and programs as prescribed in Decree No. 99/2006/NĐ-CP dated September 15, 2006 of the Government.

Article 2. Inspection of documents that are not regulatory legal documents as stipulated in Clause 2, Article 2 of Circular No. 20/2010/TT-BTP dated November 30, 2010 of the Minister of Justice detailing implementation of certain provisions of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP dated April 12, 2010 of the Government on inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents shall be carried out in accordance with this Circular.

Article 3. Inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents containing state secrets in the financial sector shall be conducted in accordance with laws on state secret protection.

Article 2. Applicability

Article 4. Administrative organizations assisting the Minister of Finance in performing state management functions.

Legal affairs organizations under General Departments (and equivalent entities) and individuals engaged in legal affairs at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry of Finance.

Organizations and individuals involved in inspection and handling of regulatory legal documents in the financial sector.

Article 5. Documents subject to inspection and handling

Point 1. Regulatory legal documents issued by the Minister of Finance in the form of Circulars and joint Circulars with Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, or with the President of the Supreme People's Court, the Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuracy.

Point 2. Documents issued by the Ministry of Finance or jointly issued that contain regulatory legal provisions but are not issued in the form of regulatory legal documents; documents having the format and content similar to regulatory legal documents or documents containing explanations of policies, systems, or guidance on resolving issues related to policies, systems, or business practices issued by Heads of units under the Ministry of Finance.

Point 3. Regulatory legal documents issued by Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, Provincial People's Councils, or Provincial People's Committees that contain provisions related to the financial sector.

Article 4. Legal Text Review Collaborators

1. Financial legal text review collaborators are individuals selected from experienced financial experts in the field of drafting and reviewing financial texts, contracted by the head of the legal text review agency to work on a piece-rate basis or for a fixed term, subject to management, professional guidance, and task execution according to the requirements of the legal text review agency.

2. The Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, legal affairs organizations under General Departments (and equivalent entities), and those engaged in legal affairs at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry shall advise and propose to the Minister and Heads of Units to enter into collaboration contracts with collaborators to work under the stipulated regulations or for a fixed term, subject to management, professional guidance, and task execution according to the requirements of the legal text review agency.

3. Criteria for legal text review collaborators:

a) Possessing legal knowledge and expertise in one or more financial fields;

b) Having experience in drafting and reviewing legal texts;

c) Having at least three years of work experience in the assigned field.

Article 5. Database for Legal Text Review

1. Establishing a database for legal text review involves systematically organizing reviewed legal texts to establish a legal basis for identifying illegal content in reviewed texts; review results and text processing; professional review information; and other relevant information, materials, and data serving the review process.

Classification and arrangement of the database must be conducted scientifically and gradually computerized based on available capacity and budget conditions to facilitate management, retrieval, and utilization.

2. The Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, legal affairs organizations under General Departments (and equivalent entities), and those engaged in legal affairs at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry shall advise the Minister and Heads of Units to establish databases serving the legal text review work of the Ministry of Finance and their respective units.

3. The use of the database must be interconnected and shared among units within the Ministry, and regularly updated on the Ministry of Finance's electronic information website (managed jointly by the Bureau of Information Technology and Financial Statistics and the Department of Legal Affairs) to serve the overall legal text review work of the Ministry of Finance.

Chapter II

SPECIFIC PROVISIONS ON TEXT REVIEW AND PROCESSING

Section 1. REVIEW AND PROCESSING OF TEXTS ISSUED BY THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

Article 6. Responsibilities for Text Review and Processing

1. Heads of agencies under the Ministry shall be responsible for:

a) Organizing reviews of texts drafted by their units;

b) When discovering signs of violations in texts, coordinating with the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry and related units (if the text was drafted by the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry, then coordinating with other units) to propose and draft contents for amending, supplementing, or replacing texts that appear to violate the law (if necessary);

c) Assigning legal affairs organizations under General Departments (and equivalent entities) and those engaged in legal affairs at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry of Finance to assist the Head of the Unit in implementing tasks under this Circular and compiling reports on the unit’s implementation results to the Ministry as required.

2. The Director of the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry shall be responsible for:

a) Participating in handling, explaining, and monitoring self-review and processing results of texts containing illegal content drafted by units under the Ministry;

b) Submitting to the Ministry for processing texts showing signs of violating the law as proposed by units under the Ministry.

Article 7. Procedures for inspecting and handling documents

1. For documents prescribed in Clause 1, Article 3 of this Circular:

a) Immediately after the Head of the Ministry signs to issue the document, the Head of the unit responsible for drafting shall conduct self-inspection. If the document is found to contain content contrary to the law, the issuance must be stopped immediately. Within 01 working day from the date of discovering the document containing content contrary to the law, the Head of the unit within the Ministry assigned to draft the document shall submit a new document to replace it to the Ministry;

b) In cases where the document is found to have content contrary to the law after its issuance, publication in the Official Gazette, and distribution to organizations and individuals, the handling of the document shall be carried out as follows:

Step 1: Establish a file for inspecting the document including the following documents:

- The document inspection form according to Model No. 03 issued together with this Circular;

- The document to be inspected;

- Legal basis documents to determine the content contrary to the law;

- Other related documents for handling the document.

Step 2:

Send the file of the document containing content contrary to the law to seek opinions from the Department of Legal Affairs and relevant units within the Ministry. Within 3 working days, the units shall provide comments on the contents within their management scope.

In cases where regulatory documents are jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, after seeking opinions from relevant units within the Ministry, they must submit the file on the document containing content contrary to the law to the joint agency (with the Ministry of Finance) to seek opinions and unify the issuance of a document proposing to handle the content contrary to the law of the inspected document.

Step 3: Submit to the Ministry (through the Department of Legal Affairs) the results of compiling opinions and proposals for handling the document. Documents submitted to the Ministry include: Report to the Ministry; Document inspection form; the document to be inspected and the legal basis documents for inspection; comments from units inside and outside the Ministry (if any).

2. For documents prescribed in Clause 2, Article 3 of this Circular:

a) The Head of the unit responsible for drafting shall organize inspections. If violations are discovered, they shall be handled according to the provisions of point b, Clause 1, Article 7 of this Circular. Specifically, for documents containing explanations of policies, systems, handling issues related to policies, systems, or guiding business practices, the unit shall send them to the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry for inspection within 3 working days from the date of issuance of the document, while compiling reports according to Model No. 02 issued together with this Circular. The Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry will inspect, and if violations are found, it will notify the unit to conduct self-inspection within 3 working days according to the procedure specified in point b, Clause 1, Article 7 of this Circular.

For documents drafted by the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry, self-inspection shall be conducted, opinions sought from relevant units within the Ministry, and a plan for handling submitted to the Ministry.

b) In cases where inspections find that the document has signs of being contrary to the law, the units shall conduct inspections according to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 7 of this Circular, exchange with the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry and relevant units, and submit plans for handling to the Ministry according to the forms prescribed in Article 26 of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP. After inspection and submission to the Ministry, send one copy to the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry for monitoring and summarizing.

Article 8. Procedures for inspecting and handling documents according to notifications from competent state agencies inspecting documents

1. Upon receiving a notification from a competent authority inspecting documents about a document issued by the Ministry of Finance having signs of being contrary to the law, the Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry shall coordinate with relevant units within the Ministry to inspect the document according to the steps specified in point b, Clause 1, Article 7 of this Circular.

2. The time limit for inspecting and handling the document is 20 days, starting from the date the Ministry of Finance receives the notification about the document having signs of being contrary to the law from the competent state agency inspecting documents.

3. The results of self-inspection and handling the document shall be sent to the competent authority inspecting documents according to the provisions of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP.

Section 2. INSPECTION AND HANDLING OF LEGAL REGULATORY DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY MINISTRIES, SECTORS, LOCALITIES RELATED TO FINANCE

Article 9. Responsibilities for inspection and handling of documents

1. Units under the Ministry, upon receiving documents, shall be responsible for:

a) Conducting inspections on legal regulatory documents within the scope of their administrative management. Legal affairs organizations at General Departments (and equivalent) and legal officers at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry of Finance shall take the lead in assisting the heads of units to implement the procedures specified in point b of this Clause and compile the results to report to the head of the unit according to regulations, and then submit to the Ministry;

b) In case of discovering documents with signs of violations, conducting inspections in accordance with the provisions of point b of Clause 1, Article 7 of this Circular and coordinating with the Legal Department of the Ministry to propose handling of documents containing illegal content, while drafting a notification letter regarding the inspection results to send to the agency or person authorized to issue the document for self-inspection. The content of the letter includes: the name of the inspected document; the requirements for the agency or person issuing the document with illegal content to conduct self-inspection and handle the document in accordance with the law;

On this basis, they shall submit the notification letter on the inspection results for approval by the Ministry and monitor and handle the situation. If the agency issuing the document with signs of illegality does not agree with the handling result or does not report the self-inspection and handling results to the Ministry of Finance as stipulated by current laws, the unit primarily responsible for inspecting the document shall coordinate with the Legal Department of the Ministry to submit to the Ministry a plan to handle the document in accordance with Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP;

2. The Legal Department of the Ministry shall be responsible for:

a) Inspecting legal regulatory documents assigned within the authority of the Minister of Finance according to the procedures stipulated in this Circular;

b) Coordinating with units when receiving documents requesting handling of documents with signs of illegality;

c) Compiling and reporting to the Ministry the results according to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 16 of this Circular;

d) Based on the inspection results and proposals from units, taking the lead in submitting to the Ministry for inspection of documents directly in accordance with Article 10 of this Circular;

Article 10. Direct Inspection of Documents at Ministries, Sectors, and Localities Issuing Documents

1. Direct inspection of legal regulatory documents at ministries, sectors, and localities issuing documents shall be carried out in cases where many legal regulatory documents are issued beyond authority, and the content shows signs of contravening the provisions of legal regulatory documents in the financial sector;

2. The Legal Department of the Ministry, based on the provisions of Clause 1 of this Article and proposals from units under the Ministry, shall draft a Plan for direct inspection of ministries, sectors, and localities for approval by the Ministry. On this basis, it shall take the lead in coordinating with relevant units under the Ministry to develop plans and organize the implementation of inspections;

3. The inspection results must be compiled and reported to the ministries, sectors, and localities issuing the documents;

Section 3. INSPECTION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF LEGAL REGULATORY DOCUMENTS AND POLICIES, STRATEGIES, PLANS, AND PROGRAMS UNDER THE SCOPE OF MANAGEMENT OF THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

Article 11. Determination of Documents Subject to Implementation Inspection

1. Documents subject to implementation inspection include legal regulatory documents issued by the Ministry of Finance, jointly issued, or submitted for issuance by competent authorities, and policies, strategies, plans, and programs under the scope of management of the Ministry of Finance, which are compiled into a List of Documents for Implementation Inspection;

2. Policies, strategies, plans, and programs subject to inspection include: policies, strategies, plans, and programs that have been institutionalized in legal regulatory documents issued by the Ministry of Finance, jointly issued, or submitted for issuance by competent authorities; and individual documents, directive documents, and operational documents of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance;

3. Before December 1st each year, heads of units shall be responsible for proposing (through the Legal Department of the Ministry) the documents within the scope and field of management of their units that need to be inspected for implementation in the following year, including:

a) Legal regulatory documents that have been implemented for one year or more, or those with issues requiring study for amendment and supplementation;

b) Those related to the core content of the unit's annual work program of the Ministry;

4. Based on the proposals from units, the Legal Department of the Ministry shall compile, supplement, and propose additional documents that need to be inspected (if necessary) into the List of Documents for Implementation Inspection for submission to the Ministry for consideration, decision, and organization of implementation.

Article 12. Principles for Organizing the Inspection of Documents Listed in the Inspection Document Directory

1. Closely combine the inspection of the implementation of documents listed in the Inspection Document Directory with the work of monitoring and evaluating the enforcement of laws, and only conduct inspections after specific inspection plans have been approved by the Ministry.

2. Inspections must ensure democracy, transparency, compliance with the law, not cause inconvenience, and not hinder the normal activities of the inspected entities.

3. At the conclusion of the inspection, there must be clear conclusions; if violations are discovered, measures to address them must be proposed.

Article 13. Inspection Implementation Plan

1. Based on the Inspection Document Directory that has been approved by the Ministry, the entity assigned the main responsibility for inspecting the implementation of documents shall coordinate with relevant units and the Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry to develop and submit to the Ministry a specific inspection plan.

2. The inspection plan shall include the following basic contents: scope of inspection; purpose of inspection; content and form of inspection; inspection area, subjects, and responsibilities for organizing the inspection.

Article 14. Forms of Inspection

Depending on specific circumstances, based on the content of the inspection and actual conditions, either or both of the following forms may be selected:

1. Inspection through self-inspection reports from inspected entities: The leading inspection unit shall issue a letter requesting and guiding the entities to conduct self-inspections and report the results to the Ministry of Finance (through the leading inspection unit).

2. Establishing an inspection team to conduct direct inspections: Based on the self-inspection reports from the entities, select inspection subjects and organize direct inspection teams according to specific fields and areas. The leading inspection unit shall notify the inspected entities at least seven working days before conducting direct inspections.

Article 15. Reporting Inspection Results

1. Upon completion of the inspection, the leading inspection unit must report the inspection results to the Ministry and simultaneously send them to the Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry for tracking and consolidation.

2. The inspection report shall include the following main contents: situation and results of implementing the document; difficulties and obstacles in organizing the implementation of the document; proposals for amending and supplementing the document (if necessary); recommendations for handling violations discovered during the inspection process.

3. Drafts of the inspection result report must be sent to the participating inspection units and related units for comments before submitting to the Ministry.

4. The leading inspection unit is responsible for coordinating with related units to implement the directives of the Ministry contained in the inspection result report.

Chapter III

IMPLEMENTATION

Article 16. Reporting System for Inspection Work and Handling of Regulatory Legal Documents

1. Reports on inspection work and handling of regulatory legal documents from units under the Ministry shall be submitted to the Ministry (through the Legal Affairs Department) as follows:

a) Monthly reports shall be submitted by the 23rd of each month;

b) Semi-annual reports shall be submitted no later than May 15;

c) Annual reports shall be submitted no later than October 15.

2. Units tasked with inspecting regulatory legal documents are responsible for organizing inspections, strictly adhering to the periodic reporting system stipulated in Clause 1 of this Article, and submitting ad hoc reports on inspection results when required (using the attached Report Form).

3. The Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry is responsible for tracking, urging, and consolidating reports to the Ministry on the inspection results of documents within the responsibility of units under the Ministry.

Article 17. Resources and Conditions for Ensuring Legal Normative Text Inspection and Handling Work

1. The funds to ensure inspection and handling work of legal normative texts shall be implemented in accordance with the provisions of Circular Joint Circular No. 122/2011/TTLT-BTC-BTP dated August 17, 2011 of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice guiding the preparation of budgets, management, utilization, and settlement of state budget funds ensuring inspection, handling, review, and systematization of legal normative texts; Circular No. 06/2007/TT-BTC dated January 26, 2007 of the Ministry of Finance guiding the preparation of budgets, management, and utilization of funds ensuring inspection of policy implementation, strategies, planning, and plans.

2. Legal institutions under the Ministry of Finance (including the Legal Department of the Ministry, legal institutions under General Departments and equivalent organizations), and personnel engaged in legal affairs at Departments and Bureaus under the Ministry of Finance shall be responsible for coordinating with financial departments of their units to prepare budgets and implement settlement of inspection and handling funds according to current laws.

3. The Cadre and Civil Service Organization Department, heads of units under the Ministry shall be responsible for arranging staffing and coordinating with the Legal Department of the Ministry to train, enhance, and improve the professional skills of civil servants engaged in inspection and handling of legal normative texts.

Article 18. Effective Date

1. This Circular takes effect from July 15, 2015. Decision No. 3982/QĐ-BTC dated December 25, 2007 of the Minister of Finance promulgating the Inspection and Handling Regulation of the Ministry of Finance is hereby repealed.

2. Matters concerning inspection and handling of texts not specified in this Circular shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP dated April 12, 2010 of the Government on inspection and handling of legal normative texts, Circular No. 20/2010/TT-BTP dated November 30, 2010 of the Minister of Justice detailing the implementation of certain articles of Decree No. 40/2010/NĐ-CP and related legal normative texts.

3. In cases where legal normative texts cited for application in this Circular are amended, supplemented, or replaced by new texts, they shall be implemented according to those texts.

4. During the implementation process, if there are any difficulties, agencies, organizations, and individuals shall promptly report them to the Ministry of Finance for research and supplementation or amendment./.