Law Committee chairman Nguyen Van Thuan, who presented the draft to the National Assembly Standing Committee, said the draft had been amended based on contributions from the previous working session.

Concerning immigration, many National Assembly deputies didn't agree with additional provisions that would tighten permanent residency registration procedures in inner Ha Noi because that measure would not get to the root of the problem.

The deputies argued that the situation of overpopulation in Ha Noi was not caused solely by permanent residency. In fact, the main reason was Ha Noi's imminent demand for free labour, such as scrap scavengers and care givers, who wouldn't necessarily know they were required to apply for residency.

Thuan said the lax residency regulations resulted in part from the rapid pace of population growth in Ha Noi.

"Ha Noi is facing overloading of its infrastructure and more serious environmental pollution," he said.

Thuan said to solve the overload, many concurrent measures should be taken, such as putting a cap on the inner city population, investing in building infrastructure in the outlying parts of the city to encourage people to move from the inner area, as well as improving inter-connecting roads between the inner areas and the suburbs.

"Stricter regulations on immigration may not be enough but they are necessary to address the issue along with other measures," he said.

Thuan said the NA Standing Committee's suggestion would be to keep the same requirements as stipulated in the Residency Law for a number of certain groups and to apply stricter requirements for people who were not in those groups.

The specified groups were employers who were deployed or recruited on non-expired labour contracts in the public sector, people who moved to live with their relatives, or people who had previously secured residency certificates in the inner city.

Truong Thi Mai, chairwoman of the Committee for Social Affairs, said the draft law aimed to use administrative measures to curb population growth, yet at the same time resulted in discrimination by offering restricted choices for immigrants in terms of health care and education.

Chairwoman of the NA Committee of Justice Le Thi Thu Ba said the immigration article may fail to produce the expected outcome because people who entered Ha Noi to make end's meet would still have to live elsewhere because Ha Noi was a very expensive place to live.

Le Dang Vang, deputy chairman of the Committee for Science, Technology and Environment, said as Ha Noi was expanding, attracting labour from outside was indispensable.

Vang used other developed countries to illustrate the point that the bigger the population, the more developed the capital would become.

"The important thing is to attract human resources for the capital's development rather than create more cumbersome rules," he said.

Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong said that there would basically be strict rules related to permanent residency registration along with temporary residency and related services, but that stipulations in the Capital Law should be different from the previous Residency Law.

Administrative fines

Whether Ha Noi should be allowed to apply higher administrative fines than general levels for violations in the fields of culture, environment, construction, transportation and residency was also discussed.

Several deputies said such regulations would destroy the consistency of the whole legal system, especially when they related to citizen rights.

Thuan said there were several administrative violations in Ha Noi as well as in other big cities which tended to be more common than in other places, which was why there should be stricter punishments for these particular violations.

He said it would not violate the equality of any citizen in the eyes of law because all violators in a particular place would receive the same punishment. In addition, higher fines targeting a small group only aimed to deter repetition.

Chairman of the National Assembly's Ethnic Council Ksor Phuoc said the compiling team should check for any conflicts in the Capital Law, especially considering 10 laws have been made related to the capital's special status.

"If the team doesn't check it in advance, who will take responsibility when a conflict emerges?" he asked.

He said if the issue of the capital's special status wasn't clarified, it could turn Ha Noi into an autonomous area. — VNS