The role of culture of legal compliance
In legal science, there are four forms of law enforcement: compliance with the law; enforcement of the law; use of the law; and application of the law. Compliance with the law is one of the four forms of law enforcement, showing that subjects restrain their behavior, passively implement the law, and do not violate the prohibitions of the law. The culture of law compliance is one of the aspects of law enforcement and compliance. There are currently many different views on this issue. The culture of law compliance is not simply passively following what the law prescribes, but it is a comprehensive awareness, a positive attitude, and proactive behavior, voluntarily implementing correctly and fully the rights and obligations of each subject prescribed by law. On the other hand, the culture of law compliance is the intentional action of each person with a deep belief in justice and social fairness. Culture of law compliance is not only the awareness, attitude, and behavior of a single subject, but also becomes widely a standard and a lifestyle that is recognized and popularized in society. In the new era, the era of the country's breakthrough development, prosperity, and strength, "the law becomes a competitive advantage, a solid foundation, and a strong driving force for development" (1) . Culture of law compliance is also an objective requirement, requiring subjects in society to proactively and actively detect "bottlenecks" created by the law itself, hindering law enforcement, affecting the promotion of innovation, creativity, and development in social life. From those findings, subjects need to give opinions, reflect, and propose amendments and supplements to legal regulations to suit the requirements and demands of practice.
Female police officereducates students about traffic safety and order laws _Photo: VNA
The formation and development of a culture of law compliance plays a core role in building and enforcing laws, because this is the decisive factor for the perfection and effectiveness of the legal system in practice, meeting the goals and requirements of national development in the new era.
A culture of law compliance has a positive and strong impact on the law-making process, determining the level of perfection of the legal system. When there is full legal awareness, people will proactively and actively participate in the law-making process through forms such as voting in referendums, contributing opinions to draft laws, directly criticizing policies or through socio-political organizations, professional social organizations, etc. This creates a two-way interaction between the state and society in the process of forming legal norms, helping the promulgated regulations not only comply with legal principles but also closely follow reality, "standing on the ground of reality", "both ensuring the requirements of state management and encouraging creativity, liberating all productive forces, and unleashing all development resources" (2) .
A culture of compliance with the law promotes transparency and democracy in law-making. When people have legal knowledge and understanding and actively participate in monitoring and critiquing draft laws, etc., it will create a need for establishing a transparent legal environment. Therefore, competent authorities must proactively improve the quality of drafting and promulgating legal documents, publicize information, and democratize the law-making process to meet the requirements and aspirations of the people and the objective requirements and demands of reality. The reception, explanation and revision of draft laws are significantly influenced by the culture of compliance with the law of the team of cadres, civil servants, legal experts, etc. When the culture of compliance with the law of the team of leaders and civil servants in law-making is nurtured, standardized and improved, the quality of legal documents will be improved, meeting the criteria and requirements for the level of perfection of the legal system. Fair, democratic, progressive, transparent, feasible, accessible legal documents will gradually replace subjective and coercive legal documents. The legitimate rights and interests of individuals, organizations, and enterprises are recognized, regulated, and strictly protected by the Constitution and laws, contributing to enhancing people's trust in the law and justice. A fair, democratic, civilized legal system is the basis and essential condition for raising legal awareness and a culture of law compliance in social life.
Culture of law compliance is a decisive factor in the effectiveness of law enforcement. Laws are guaranteed to be enforced by coercion. When laws are enacted, the state can use its power to apply coercive measures, forcing subjects in society to comply with the law. However, law enforcement cannot rely entirely on state coercive measures, because doing so can create conflicts, psychological instability in society and cause waste of resources for the state. If every citizen has a correct and complete awareness of the law, they will trust the law. In society, the law is the most effective tool to protect the rights and legitimate interests of each individual. With that awareness, compliance with the law will be the duty and responsibility of each individual, as well as of everyone. Thus, the law will easily enter into practice and social life.
A culture of law compliance creates a stable social environment where each person's behavior is regulated by self-awareness rather than by fear of coercive measures. When people comply with the law and act within the framework of the law, violations of the law in society will be minimized. The administrative and judicial apparatus will have less work pressure and save on law enforcement costs. Law compliance is also a factor that contributes to promoting fair, strict, consistent, and timely law enforcement...
In particular, the culture of law compliance is also a factor that ensures the connection between the rights, obligations and social responsibilities of the subjects. In a rule-of-law society, all rights are accompanied by legal obligations and social responsibilities. The culture of law compliance helps subjects to be aware of the limits of behavior, not only from a legal perspective but also from an ethical perspective and community responsibility. People not only know how to protect their legitimate rights, but also proactively fulfill their obligations to the state and society. People's trust in the rule of law state will be strengthened and enhanced. The law will become a driving force to promote and enhance the capacity of national governance subjects. That is the basis for promoting internal strength and developing the country in a sustainable manner.
On the contrary, in an environment where the culture of law compliance is weak, people are indifferent or do not have the necessary legal capacity to participate in law-making, the legal system is likely to fall into a state of formality, far from life, lacking stability and feasibility. At that time, the law became a "bottleneck" for development. If the culture of law compliance is low, the community's awareness of law compliance is weak..., even the most completely built legal documents will find it difficult to promote their value in practice. In this case, the law can be applied arbitrarily, inconsistently, unfairly... Phenomena of "circumventing the law", taking advantage of policies, corruption, group interests,... has the opportunity to prevail. That causes people's trust in the law and justice to waver and erode.
The current state of culture of law compliance in the current period
After many years of building and perfecting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the culture of law compliance in our country has had many positive changes. People are more interested in policies and laws and have more confidence in the fairness and strictness in the implementation and application of laws, while actively and proactively participating in the development of policies and laws. In recent years, the level of people's interest in policies and laws has been quite high and has concentrated to increase gradually. People's perception of issues related to corruption and negative in the public apparatus has improved significantly in a positive direction. The consultation of people on the arrangement and merger of provincial and communal administrative units has been completed with a consensus rate reaching an almost absolute level. After a period of organizing to collect opinions on the Draft to amend and supplement a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution, "more than 280 million opinions were contributed by agencies, organizations and individuals on the Draft Resolution to amend and supplement a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution and the approval rate was very high, reaching 99.75%" (3) .
However, The current state of legal compliance culture in Vietnam shows that there are still some worrying issues. “The awareness of law compliance of a number of cadres, civil servants, party members and people is not strict” (4) . Illegal acts are still common and complicated in many cases, especially related fields that directly affect people's lives, such as land, production, business, trade, etc. "In 2023, the market management force detected and handled 52,251 cases of violations of smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods. In 2024, 47,135 cases were detected and handled. In the first four months of 2025, localities and units arrested and handled more than 34,000 violations, collected more than 4,892 billion VND for the state budget, prosecuted 1,405 cases, and prosecuted more than 2,100 subjects" (5) , in which some cases had the complicity of some officials and civil servants. "The Traffic Police Department said that in 2024, there were 21,532 road traffic accidents nationally, killing 9,954 people and injuring 16,044 people. Of these, 23 particularly serious accidents occurred on roads, killing 76 people and injuring 17 people" (6) . The summary results show that poor legal awareness, disregard for the law, and disregard for the law by traffic participants are the basic causes of traffic accidents. Notably, in cyberspace - a unique legal environment - illegal acts such as spreading fake news, online fraud, slander, defamation of the reputation and honor of individuals and organizations, and sabotage of the Party and the State are quite complicated.
The fight against corruption and poverty in recent times has achieved remarkable results, contributing to strengthening people's trust in justice and social equality. However, corruption is a dangerous social problem that needs to be fought fiercely, especially when a number of major corruption cases have been discovered recently. This shows that a certain proportion of people are still concerned about the issue of strictness and fairness in law enforcement.
The proactive, self-aware, and active awareness in learning about the law and participating in giving opinions on law-making among a segment of the population is not high. Statistics in the period 2022 - 2024 show that people tend to use mass media, such as radio, television, newspapers, social networks, etc. to monitor policies and laws more and more. Among the surveyed people, the number of people willing to participate in giving opinions on policy-making and law-making is not high. The form of sending opinion forms to homes and agencies received the highest support from the people, but only about 39.14% of the survey people were willing to participate in this form. Only 9.53% of the survey people were willing to participate in giving opinions on policies and laws online. This data shows that the level of proactive learning about policies and laws among people is still not high (7) .
In addition to the situation where some individuals lack legal awareness, do not comply with and implement legal regulations..., the situation where the legal system is not yet complete, adequate, stable, transparent, feasible,... is also a significant obstacle to building a culture of law compliance. "The legal system lacks uniformity, many contents do not meet the requirements of building a rule of law state" (8) , publicity, transparency, considerations, and stability still have certain limitations. "Contradictions and overlaps between legal documents still exist, affecting the implementation and application of the law, causing the settlement of administrative and legal procedures to take a lot of time. The problems existing in the legal system above have reduced the effectiveness and efficiency of the law, affecting people's trust and psychology in the law" (9) .
The judicial reform strategy led by the Party in the recent period has achieved many important steps and outstanding achievements. However, judicial activities in general still have certain limitations. "Although the quality of trials and settlement of civil, criminal, economic cases, etc. by people's courts at all levels has improved, the rate of judgments and decisions being annulled or altered due to subjective errors has not decreased significantly compared to the requirements of judicial reform" ( 10) . "The rate of imprisonment but suspended sentences is high" (11) . "There are still stuck in economic and corruption crimes who are given suspended sentences in violation of regulations" (12) . Some limitations and inadequacies in judicial activities in the recent past have caused certain impacts on trust and social psychology. Therefore, people's trust in the law and justice has also been affected to a certain extent.
Some basic tasks and solutions
In the context of the country entering a new era with many intertwined opportunities and challenges, in order to build a culture of law compliance and strengthen the spirit of respect for the Constitution and the law, it is necessary to implement specific and feasible tasks and solutions.
First, continue to improve the legal system.
Level The perfection of the legal system has a great influence on the culture of law compliance. The legal system affects the psychology, emotions, and beliefs of subjects towards the law, forming positive or negative attitudes in law compliance. A perfect legal system is a legal system that recognizes and expresses the will of the people, is consistent with the development of society, aims to protect the rights and legitimate interests of subjects, and improve the material and spiritual life and happiness of the people. The simpler, clearer, and more transparent the law is, the easier it is to implement and apply to life, and at the same time it will be regarded, accepted, and actively, proactively, and voluntarily implemented by the people. If the legal system meets the above criteria and requirements, the rule of law and the law will gradually become the norm of conduct for all subjects in society. The culture of law compliance is received, absorbed, spread, shaped, and developed.
It is necessary to "renew thinking and orient the development of laws in the direction of both ensuring the requirements of state management and encouraging creativity, liberating all productive forces, and unlocking all development resources" (13) ; urgently review all legal documents, strengthen dialogue, receive and listen to opinions and recommendations of individuals, organizations and enterprises to basically complete the removal of "bottlenecks"; continue to complete the amendment, supplementation and promulgation of new legal documents to ensure a synchronous legal basis for the operation of the state apparatus according to the 3-level government model, associated with maximum decentralization and delegation of power according to the motto "locality decides, locality does, locality takes responsibility", meeting the requirements of being streamlined, compact, strong, efficient, effective and efficient; perfect the legal system on investment and business, bringing Vietnam's investment environment to the top 3 countries in ASEAN by 2028.
The law needs to fully, correctly and promptly institutionalize the Party's policies and guidelines, starting from the overall interests of the country, making institutions and laws a competitive advantage; Respecting and protecting the legitimate and legal rights and interests of people, organizations and businesses. It is necessary to abandon the mindset of "if you can't manage it, then ban it" in the development and promotion of law. Strive that by 2030, Vietnam will have a democratic, fair, synchronous, unified, public, transparent and feasible legal system; by 2045, Vietnam will have a modern legal system, approaching international standards, suitable to the practical development level of the country and respecting and protecting human rights and civil rights.
Border Guard officers and soldiers distribute leaflets to promote the law to fishermen_Photo: VNA
Second, raise legal awareness and social responsibility of all subjects.
A culture of compliance with the law is formed on the basis of understanding the law and social responsibility of each individual. When understanding the law, clearly realizing their rights, obligations, and social responsibilities, each member of society will proactively comply with the law, considering compliance with the law as a duty, a way to protect themselves and the community. Legal awareness and social responsibility also motivate people to take preventive actions and fight against violations of the law, helping them to analyze, question, debate, and make correct and legal recommendations. Legal awareness and social responsibility are conditions for each individual to be able to guide and help other entities to enforce the law, inspire, create a spread in the community, contribute to the formation and development of a culture of compliance with the law.
Therefore, it is necessary to promote and diversify methods of policy communication, dissemination and legal education, especially policies and laws that have a great impact on society, people, businesses, etc. It is necessary to focus on explaining laws and guiding law enforcement, disseminating laws in more diverse, rich and vivid forms, increasing the application of digital technology, building a large database of laws; prioritizing information and propaganda of legal contents on national radio and television; building and creating literary and artistic works that are close to life, inspiring with real-life examples; highlight the values and significance of law compliance and the risks and legal consequences if individuals and organizations deliberately do not comply with legal provisions.
It is necessary to expand the legal aid network so that people can receive timely support when facing difficulties, especially for hazardous groups, the poor, and low-income people who face many obstacles and informal barriers in accessing justice, etc.; Implement legal education from schools to the community, improve the quality of legal training, and develop prestigious key law training institutions.
Third, enforce the law fairly, strictly, consistently, honor and replicate typical examples of a culture of law compliance.
This is a solution to strengthen and increase trust in justice and the law, creating motivation to promote compliance with the law. When the law is not applied strictly, fairly, consistently, etc., there may be a mentality of distrust in the law in society, finding ways to "circumvent the law" or having a mentality of indifference and apathy towards corruption and disregard, etc.
In the coming time, it is necessary to thoroughly grasp and properly implement the Party's guidelines and viewpoints, create breakthroughs in law enforcement, ensure that the law is implemented fairly, strictly, consistently and promptly... It is necessary to standardize and improve the capacity of cadres and civil servants working in the field of law making and enforcement; strengthen the legal system, discipline and order associated with the public service; promote decentralization and delegation of power along with effective control of power; promptly detect and strictly handle violations of the law, "no forbidden zones, no exceptions". It is necessary to honor, reward and arouse pride in individuals and organizations that are honorable in complying with the law, forming standard values of the spirit of respect for the Constitution and the law, attaching importance to compliance with the law and considering this a manifestation of legal civilization, associated with the honor and prestige of individuals, organizations and communities...
In the context of current national development, construction and development A culture of compliance with the law is an urgent requirement, ensuring that the process of building and enforcing the law is effective, substantial and brings long-term value and significance to society. A culture of compliance with the law is an important element, contributing to building a democratic, equal, safe and transparent society, where the people are truly the masters, deciding on important issues of the country. Subjects in society such as the State, individuals, organizations, enterprises, etc. all need to coordinate and interact through practical and specific actions, building a comprehensive and synchronous culture of compliance with the law. When regarded by subjects as a living value, the law will become a driving force for the sustainable development of the country in the new era./.
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(1) See: Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW, dated April 30, 2025, of the Politburo, on "Innovation in law-making and enforcement to meet the requirements of national development in the new era"
(2) See: Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW, dated April 30, 2025, of the Politburo, on "Innovation in law-making and enforcement to meet the requirements of national development in the new era"
(3) English: “Over 280 million comments on the draft Resolution amending the 2013 Constitution”, Government Electronic Newspaper, June 6, 2025
(4) See: Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW of the Central Executive Committee, dated November 9, 2022, on "Continuing to build and perfect the socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam in the new period"
(5) Phuong Thuy: "The National Assembly is "hot" about counterfeit and fake goods, delegates propose many timely solutions", People's Police Newspaper , June 17, 2025, https://vtv.vn/xa-hoi/nguyen-nhan-chinh-dan-den-tai-nan-la-do-khong-chap-hanh-quy-tac-Giao-thong-20250101065741841.htm
(6) VTVONLINE: "The main cause of accident is failure to comply with traffic rules", January 1, 2025
(7) See: Ministry of Home Affairs - Vietnam Fatherland Front - Vietnam Veterans Association: "Report on people's satisfaction index with the service of state administrative agencies in 2024"
(8) Documents of the 12th National Congress of Delegates , Central Party Office, Hanoi, 2016, pp. 79, 173
(9) See: Nguyen Van Thoi: "Building and perfecting the Socialist Rule of Law State of Vietnam and the spirit of respect for the Constitution and current laws", Electronic Communist Magazine, February 2, 2020
(10) See: Nguyen Van Thoi: "Judicial reform in nearly 40 years of innovation and solutions to improve the effectiveness of judicial reform, ensure social justice in Vietnam today", Electronic Communist Magazine, November 30, 2024
(11) Nguyen Hoa Binh: "Building a People's Court worthy of being a symbol of justice, reason and trust", National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2020, p. 19
(12) Nguyen Hoa Binh: "Building a People's Court worthy of being a symbol of justice, reason and trust", ibid, p. 19
(13) See: Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW, dated April 30, 2025, of the Politburo, on "Innovation in law-making and enforcement to meet the requirements of national development in the new era"
Source: https://tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/guest/van_hoa_xa_hoi/-/2018/1102402/xay-dung-van-hoa-tuan-thu-phap-luat-dap-ung-yeu-cau-phat-trien-dat-nuoc-trong-ky-nguyen-moi.aspx
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