Unconstitutional constitution in Vietnamese discourse

Abstract

This chapter explores mathematician Hoàng Xuân Phú’s discussion of Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution as an unconstitutional constitution. It situates this discourse within the broader national constitutional debates in Vietnam and comparative scholarship on unconstitutional constitutional amendments and unconstitutional constitutions. It argues that Hoàng’s account of an unconstitutional constitution is a political, critical, and normative discourse on Vietnam’s Constitution. First, his account is not a judicial doctrine but a political discourse of a public intellectual on unconstitutional constitutions. The discourse is informed and motivated by political events, particularly the preceding, broader, national constitutional debate, and the adoption of the new Constitution. Second, his discourse is critical in the sense that it is an intellectual interpretation of some principles of Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution in line with liberal constitutionalism and international law. His discourse also relies on comparative analysis to castigate other provisions in the socialist Constitution of Vietnam as unconstitutional. Third, the discourse is normative as it calls for constitutional amendments to make the Constitution constitutional by incorporating liberal and universal constitutional norms.