A seminar on judicial cases in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was held online and offline on April 23, 2022.

Judicial exchanges will be further strengthened among the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in order to provide strong judicial support for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), said Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on April 23.

He made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the GBA judicial case seminar via video link. Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Andrew Cheung, Chief Justice of the Macao Court of Final Appeal Sam Hou Fai, and Secretary for Justice of HKSAR Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah attended the seminar and delivered speeches respectively.

Zhou pointed out that significant progress has been achieved in judicial work related to the GBA since the implementation of the Outline Development Plan for the GBA three years ago. Efforts have been made to synergize legal rules and mechanisms in the three regions, deepen judicial cooperation, improve the settlement mechanism for trans-regional commercial disputes and foster a business environment with global competitiveness.

This seminar is of great significance in better coordinating rules and mechanisms and building a world-class bay area, Zhou said. He called for better judicial exchanges among the three sides, firmly implementing the principle of “one country, two systems”, and giving better play to the role of case studies in trans-regional regulation comparison and compatibility. An innovative approach needs to be adopted in exploring new ways to coordinate judicial regulations, he noted, adding that efforts are needed to improve the judicial assistance system, innovate the judicial assistance model, expand the scope of judicial cooperation, improve judicial cooperation efficiency, explore new measures to serve the regional market integration, and promote the convenient flow and optimized allocation of market factors. Cooperation is also needed to raise the level of GBA’s opening-up in legal affairs and create a benign legal environment for the building of an open world economy and a community with a shared future for mankind, Zhou said.

Cheung said Hong Kong has been striving to build a service center for international legal and dispute resolutions in the Asia-Pacific region by fully tapping its advantages as a highly open and internationalized metropolis. He said this seminar served as a good platform for judicial exchanges among the three sides and expressed his hope that the judicial cooperation would be deepened, various judicial assistance mechanisms in civil and commercial areas improved, and the challenges in handling the trans-regional cases in those areas better addressed. Sam said the GBA development is a strategic decision made by the central authorities and a significant opportunity for Hong Kong and Macao to be integrated into the national development paradigm and to maintain long term prosperity and stability. He pointed out that the mainland and Macao have established a relatively complete legal framework for trans-regional judicial assistance in civil and commercial areas. A more open perspective and innovative thinking are needed to respond to new challenges arising from the development of the GBA, and practical cooperation in judicial affairs is needed among the three sides to contribute more to the GBA development, he added.

Cheng said the GBA is one of the most open and vibrant regions in China, whose leapfrog economic development poses practical requirements for the compatibility of trans-regional legal rules. She hoped this seminar would facilitate more exchanges and experience sharing in judicial, legal and academic areas among the three sides, eliminate conflicts of laws while maintaining their uniqueness of three jurisdictions, and jointly promote the rule-of-law governance in the GBA.