The CBA met in November with a delegation of 12 directors and legal officials from Vietnam’s Finance and Justice ministries.
The officials came to Ottawa and to Toronto as part of a study mission to learn about budgeting and planning laws, programs resulting from legislation and monitoring/evaluating the implementation of laws and programs.
Part of the monitoring aspect includes how civil society, including the CBA, monitors or influences law reform. While in Ottawa, delegates met with the CBA’s Legislation and Law Reform team to discuss what the Association does to influence policy and law at various levels.
CEO Cheryl Farrow hosted a welcome dinner for the group upon their arrival in Ottawa. Kimberly Inkstater, the Project Director of the Vietnam National Legislative Development Project; Project Manager-Technical Support Joanie Paquin; and Do Thuy Van, Senior Project Officer at the NLD Project Field Office in Hanoi were also in attendance.
Over three days of meetings in the capital the delegation also sat down with officials from the Treasury Board, the departments of Finance and Health, and Canadians for Tax Fairness.
They spent another two days in Toronto meeting with officials from the provincial Ministry of the Attorney General, Treasury Board and the Finance Ministry.
The Canadian Bar Association is part of a consortium with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and Stikeman Elliot LLP to implement a $14-million, seven-year bilateral assistance project funded by Global Affairs Canada. The aim of the project is to improve the legal system in Vietnam by supporting an integrated reform of the legislative development process and improve the quality of economic legislation.
The current focus of the project is to improve the Vietnamese capacity for planning and budgeting for law-making, improving legislative and regulatory policy development, improving drafting capability and establishing a comprehensive regime at both national and provincial levels for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of laws.