Human rights in Vietnam's Constitution 2013

The Constitution 2013 of Vietnam stipulated clearly the State’s protection of human rights.

Article 3 of the Constitution 2013 explicitly specified that the State of the Socialist republic of Vietnam “protects and guarantees human rights, citizen rights…”

Providing this principle, the communist Party and the State not only emphasized the role of people as central to the purpose and nature of the Vietnamese State.

The constitution 2013 contains an important article (Article 14) providing the overall protection of human rights. Article 14 of the Constitution 2013 official uses the term if “human rights” an stipulated that:

In the Socialist republic of Vietnam, human rights, citizen rights in all respects – political, civil, economic, cultural and social – are recognized, respected, protected and guaranteed in according to the Constitution and the Law.

Noteworthy is that this Article provides the overall protection if human rights. Although, under this Article, human rights are distinguished from citizen’s rights, it reflects the perspective of the Vietnamese Government in terms of respecting and protecting human rights in five areas set out under the International covenants, namely civil, political, economic, social and cultural. This provision is evidence of important changes in the perspective and understanding of human rights in comparison to previous, in that the issue of human rights was considered to be closely related to capitalism and sometimes, even viewed as an instrument o the western capitalism to intervene in domestic issues of the socialist countries. The understanding grew out of the fact and at present, the issue of human rights is the occasionally cited by Western countries in opposing the renovation, development, and integration of Vietnam. Nonetheless, a distortion of the facts regarding the perspective of the Communist Party and the Vietnamese Government on human rights and the practical situation of human rights in Vietnam has become less effective over time.

The constitution 2013 explicitly provides the principle that “human rights” encompass all “citizen’s rights” set out in the Constitution and other statues. In other words, human rights in Vietnam are stipulated and ensured in various statues. Thus, there exits comments that if a particular human rights cannot be found in exiting Vietnamese statues, that human right should not be viewed as a citizen’s right but as a separate type of right that the Vietnamese state should protect. For example, there is a view that same-sex marriage is a natural right of human beings and therefore this right shall be respected. This understanding of human rights was employed by courts in several U.S. states to recognize same-sex marriage, even though the right could not be found in any enacted statutes. Therefore, in order accurately delineate the rights to business free dome of Vietnamese citizens; it is necessary to understand the current statues regarding “business freedom,” rather than discussing vague concepts of “business freedoms” as natural rights of human beings.