House of the Republic, National Assembly's meeting place from 2010
The National Assembly of Democratic Republic of Indochina is the national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Indochina.
The Constitution of Indochina recognizes the Assembly is the highest state organ of the state power. The National Assembly, a 750-delegate unicameral body elected to a five-year term, meet four times a year. The Assembly appoints President (the head of state), the Prime Minister (the head of government), give consulting votes to the appointment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court and the Procurator General (also called as Attorney General) of the Supreme People's Procuracy, instead of appointing the two last positions after the 7th Amendments to the Constitution on 2021. The National Assembly was heavily influenced by the two main dominant parties in the National Front (the leading organization as guaranteed by the constitution): the Socialist Party of Indochina (the de jure and de facto leading party) and the Democratic Party of Indochina, which exercises control by 220 members (180 voting and 40 non-voting) of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party and 30 members of the Executive Committee of Indochina.
According to the constitution, the National Assembly has the rights to draw up, adopt, and amend the constitution and to make and amend laws. It also have the rights to legislate and implement state plans (5-year plans) and budgets. The National Assembly also have the rights to elected, impeached President, Prime Ministers, Ministers in the Government. And finally, it also has to rights to initiate or conclude wars or assume other duties it deems necessary. The National Assembly is increasingly taking a greater part on Indochina's political life. It sometimes opposes and vetoes laws or plans that was drafted by the Central Committee such as the "5-year plan on Bauxite Mining" or projects such as nuclear power plants in Thuận Hải.
History[]
The basis for the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Indochina is the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Indochina, which was formed immediately after the Declaration of Independence on September 2nd, 1945. It was first met at the Hanoi Opera House on the 8th September, 1945 with 450 deputies from the Communist Party of Indochina, Socialist Party of Vietnam, Vietnamese Nationalist Party (which annexed the smaller Vietnam Revolutionary League), Democratic Party of Indochina, Peace and Neutrality Party and some pro-government independents. The war time government was composed of Communists, Socialists and the Democrats. The main opposition is the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, later changed to the Indochinese Nationalist Party, a centre-right party.
The Constituent Assembly was conducted with heated debates on multiple issues that considered vital to the national economy and national security, such as the formation of the National Armed Forces and the National Guard, which was the militia of the former. There was continuance of brawling between the radicals in the Communist Party of Indochina (radical left, led by Hoàng Văn Hoan) and the Nationalist Party led by Vũ Hồng Khanh as a result of those debates. The brawling was stopped after the Standing Committee of the Constituent Assembly issued a "Law on the Constituent Assembly's Deputies", which specifically ordered the deputies to conduct good behavior to the public and to their colleagues.
1st National Assembly (1946-51)[]
The first general election for the National Assembly was conducted on the 6th January, 1946, competed for the 450 seats. The newly formed Socialist Party of Indochina, a nominally democratic socialist party, obtained enough majority to form a government with the support of the Democratic Party of Indochina and the newly formed Liberal Party of Indochina, forming a Red-Blue-Yellow, respectively for the Socialists, the Democrats and the Liberals. The main opposition is the Nationalists, who advocated a more radical anti-French positions compared to the current government stance, emphasizing on cooperation with the Kuomintang to support more weapons to the newly formed National Army.
Parliamentary questioning was formed in the National Assembly with the questioning of 4 ministers: Ministers of Health, Labour and Social Affairs Lê Văn Hiến, Minister of Finance Dương Kì Hiệp, Governor of the National Bank Nguyễn Lương Bằng and Chairman of the Constitutional Committee Trường Chinh, which was related on Article 44, 47, 48 of the Constitution on the role of Ministries in the Government of Indochina. Some loyalists (those who were loyal to the Socialist Party of Indochina) in the Democratic Party also gave the initiative to add the article preserve the leading role of the SPI-led National Front, which was considered ineffective by the opposition.
The activity was de facto suspended in 1950, when the Democratic Republic of Indochina was only recognized by socialist states including the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of Poland. As such, the parliamentary democracy of Indochina was changed to a dominant-party state with the leading role belongs to the Socialist Party of Indochina.