According to Conclusion No. 17 issued by the Communist Party’s Politburo on April 2, the 2013 Constitution may soon undergo another revision.
Following the course of events: Conclusion No. 17 outlines the legislative direction for the 16th National Assembly term.
According to the document, the National Assembly will consider a “comprehensive revision of the 2013 Constitution” to ensure it is “aligned with practical realities and the country’s development needs in a new phase.”
Beyond broad directives, the conclusion specifically calls for “removing legal bottlenecks,” “decisively abandoning the mindset that what cannot be managed must be banned,” and “shifting from pre-approval and absolute safety requirements toward proactively accepting controlled risks.”
It also mandates “legislating controlled pilot mechanisms,” though it does not specify what exactly will be subject to experimentation.
Important: Although Conclusion No. 17 was signed and issued on April 2—approximately five days before the opening of the 16th National Assembly’s first session—it was not officially released by state media until the morning of April 9.
What remains unclear is the exact scope of these changes; there are, so far, no concrete indications of the Communist Party’s specific constitutional agenda.
Looking back: In 2025, the 15th National Assembly amended the Constitution in just 43 days, beginning from May 5, the date it decided to initiate the revision. During that round, the National Assembly formally abolished the district-level administrative tier.
At the time, General Secretary Tô Lâm stated that “if possible, a fundamental constitutional revision would likely be considered only at the next Party Congress.”
Thạch Hãn wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 9, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights of the English translation.
