National legal portal must become useful tool for all: PM

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on May 31 attended the launch of the National Legal Portal, emphasising that the portal must serve as an official destination, a realiable address, an intelligent interaction platform, and an indispensable companion for both citizens and businesses.

The portal, https://phapluat.gov.vn, aims to be a centralised, official gateway for the public and businesses to access legal information and advice, ensuring transparency, accessibility, and efficiency.

By integrating the national legal database with the VNeID platform for digital identification, the portal enables two-way access to official information and supports public feedback, while also enhancing legal awareness and capacity for enterprises.

Built using modern technologies, including artificial intelligence and multilingual functionality, the Portal offers essential features such as legal information searches; responses to public and business queries on legal issues; and digital reception and handling of feedback and petitions related to legal documents.

Having observed demonstrations and personally experienced the portal’s functions, PM Chinh expressed his long-standing aspiration to build a comprehensive digital legal tool. The launch marked a significant step forward in building a socialist rule-of-law state in Vietnam and accelerating the development of a digital government, moving towards a modern, transparent, efficient administration that puts people and businesses at its heart, he said.

The portal is expected to help remove legal bottlenecks, which the PM described as both a breakthrough of breakthroughs and the bottleneck of all bottlenecks, while serving as a catalyst and resource for development.

It will shift the Government's legal services from passive provision to proactive engagement, contributing to developing digital government, society, citizens, economy, while reducing compliance costs and saving time and effort for users.

He commended the Ministry of Justice for its determination, swift coordination, and timely completion of the portal, fulfilling its assigned mandate.

Highlighting the country’s major development orientations, the Government leader noted Politburo's four resolutions referred to as the “four pillars” that aim to drive rapid, sustainable national growth - breakthroughs in science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation; international integration in the new context; private economic development; and legal reform to meet the demands of a new era.

To ensure the portal operates smoothly and effectively, PM Chinh instructed the Ministry of Justice to continue enhancing its features and database fields, and to regularly update content to maintain a rich, accurate, real-time legal information repository. He stressed the need for intelligent and user-friendly interfaces, secure and seamless functioning, and high-quality data that is “accurate, sufficient, clean, and live.”

He asked for a focus on processing and monitoring public feedback on legal documents and recommended applying advanced technologies such as AI and big data to improve service quality and performance, particularly within the legal database.

Relevant ministries, agencies, and provincial authorities were requested to actively contribute and update their data on the portal, assign focal points to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice, and respond to legal queries and public feedback within their jurisdiction.

The media was urged to step up efforts in publicising the portal’s purpose, features, and benefits so that it is widely known, accessed, and effectively utilised.

For the portal to become “a truly useful tool for all”, he urged all public officials and civil servants to engage with and make use of the system. He also called on the business community and the wider public to actively explore and use the services it provides. He highlighted the need for multilingual development and a results-based monitoring system to assess its impact.

Calling for feedback from authorities, the private sector, for the improvement of the portal, PM Chinh pledged that the Government remains committed to listening and ensuring the system evolves continuously.

He concluded by affirming the ambition for the National Legal Portal to become a symbol of a dynamic, modern judicial system dedicated to the nation and people./.