HÀ NỘI —  A new constitution in 2013 featuring several new guidelines and views of the Party and the State, made it necessary to introduce amendments to the law on national defence to “match the present reality,” said Minister of Defence Ngô Xuân Lịch in an address to the National Assembly yesterday during its fourth meeting.

The law on national defence was approved by the National Assembly in June, 2005, and started to take effect in 2006.

Lịch said that in the last 10 years, implementation of the law had made numerous important achievements, helping to ensure the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security and order, which ultimately contribute to the country’s socio-economic development.

However, the defence minister said that the 2013 constitution’s principles regarding national defence had not been institutionalised, and some content of the 2005 law was not compatible or synchronised with the existing system of legal documents.

He said the demands of new reality, in which besides traditional forms of war there had emerged several new forms – unconventional warfare, proxy warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare; and hi-tech weapons together with electronic warfare would be the primary tools deployed from the beginning and during the war. On the other hand, the world had been witnessing increasingly unpredictable changes in the manner, size, scope, space, time, environment, forces and warfare tactics involved in war-waging, he added.

“In order to effectively prevent wars and have winning responses in all possible scenarios in all forms of warfares, there needs to be amendments introduced to the law, which would create a higher legal corridor for national building and defence, ensuring a peaceful and politically stable environment to serve the country’s development,” the defence minister said.

The defence minister also told the NA that the draft law was built as a framework law, only providing essential over-arching guidelines and policies, while allowing for more flexibility to adapt to changing practical conditions.

Võ Trọng Việt, chairman of the NA’s National Defence and Security Committee, reporting on the committee’s assessment of the proposed draft law, said the committee agreed the defence law would need to be amended. The committee also noted that the draft law had been built and presented in line with existing regulations on legal document promulgation and was eligible for submission to the National Assembly.

However, the lawmaking agency should make clear the issues and obstacles, giving assessments of new policies such as military zone defence, and add regulations on martial law and curfew,” Việt said. — VNS