Standing Committee of the National Assembly

Vietnam portal The National Assembly Standing Committee (Uỷ ban Thường vụ Quốc hội - UBTVQH), formerly organized as the Council of State (Hội đồng Nhà nước), is the highest standing body of the National Assembly of Vietnam.

Between 1980 and 1992,[citation needed] the Standing Committee served as the collective head of state,[1] as the office of President was abolished.

[1] It played a more active role than the presidency it replaced, and, in addition, it assumed the day-to-day duties of the former National Assembly Standing Committee under the old constitution.

[1] As stipulated in the Constitution, the Council of State comprised a chairman, several vice chairmen (there were three in 1987), a general secretary, and members (there were seven in 1987).

[1] However, this collective arrangement proved unwieldy, and in 1992, a new constitution was passed, reforming the Executive in the opposite direction: The office of President was reinstated with a single figure serving as the nominated head of state, the Council of State reverted to being the existing National Assembly Standing Committee, and the Council of Ministers - itself also a collective body - was replaced by a definition of an executive cabinet (designated as the Government), headed by a Prime Minister with wide amount of control over the executive.