Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa, former director of Department of Criminal and Administrative Legislation. VNS Photo Khánh Dương

Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa, former director of Department of Criminal and Administrative Legislation under the Ministry of Judicial Affairs, speaks to Việt Nam News reporter Khánh Dương on citizens’ rights to access land information, which have been regulated in the Land Law 2024.

The Land Law 2014 has laid out regulations on citizens’ rights to access land information including land master plan and land pricing. Could you elaborate on the importance of disclosing land information to the public?

Learning land information about the places where people live is the basic right stated in the Constitution’s Article 25. It is said that information is the oxygen of life. In the environment where they are living, they must be aware of the level of air pollution or water standards.

Land information is the information that citizens have the right to ask for. It is important information as it is linked to citizens’ properties.

If you want to make an investment, establish a new factory, you have to own land and you must know the district’s land master plan. We must know which land is classified as forest land, which is production land or residential land, to avoid using the land lot for the wrong purpose.

The United Nations Development Programme in Việt Nam and its partners recently published a review on the disclosure of land information by local authorities in Việt Nam from 2021 to the present. The review highlights significant improvements in the transparency of disclosing land use plans and land pricing frameworks on the web portals of provincial and district governments. Could you comment on these results?

According to the review, about 73 per cent of provinces and central-level cities in Việt Nam have disclosed land pricing frameworks on their web portals as of October 2023.

Out of a total of 705 district units nationwide, 65.4 per cent have disclosed district-level land use master plans for the 2021-2030 period.

I feel optimistic as the level of disclosing land use plans and land pricing has been increasing. That is extremely important to citizens as they need lots of information including land information.

If they have the capital to make an investment, they need to know how their land lot is to be used.

I think transparency in disclosing land use plans and land pricing also helps avoid corruption and bribery. Instead of giving bribes to get access to land information, now citizens can access open information as stated by the law.

Do you have any recommendation for State management agencies to improve citizen’s rights of accessing land information?

The most important thing is whether citizens are aware of their rights to access land information. That will encourage the transparent disclosure of land use plans and land pricing frameworks.

We need to collect feedback of public employees who are directly in charge of land information disclosure at the provincial and district levels, as well as ask for citizens’ feedback to know which areas still have shortcomings, which have not been properly implemented, to make improvements.

We have to agree that the enforcement of the land information access law must be included in the professional land law.

The information access law only acts as a supplement to regulate procedures of disclosing land information, in cases where the information is to be disclosed.

Meanwhile the land law covers which type of information should be disclosed and at which time.

Public employees in charge of land information disclosure must read and learn professional land law in their areas while citizens must understand land law in their sector and not miss any single document. VNS