On June 26, 2018, in the first tribunal of Zhongshan Intermediate People’s Court of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou Maritime Court pronounced its first-instance judgment on a civil public interest litigation of liabilities for marine environmental pollution. The first of such filed by a Procuratorate after the revision of the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China.
On August 30, 2016, as staffs of Zhongshan Ocean and Fishery Bureau of Guangdong Province conducted an inspection alongside the waters under the jurisdiction, they discovered the vessel was dumping rubbish into the sea at beacon 12 light of Hengmen east-toward seaward channel in Minzhong Town of Zhongshan City. Upon the investigation public security organs of Zhongshan City found that between July and August of 2016, on the excuse of reinforcing the bound, Peng, among four other Foshan citizens were transported waste from a paper mill in Sanchong Dock of Zhongtang Town of Dongguan City and dumped it near the said beacon, which caused great pollution to the surrounding marine environment.
On April 16, 2016, Zhongshan Ocean and Fishery Bureau filed a civil lawsuit against Peng and another three to Guangzhou Maritime Court, claiming damages over 3,000,000RMB for ecological restoration and another 3,000,000RMB more caused by pollution and assessment, and that Yuan, the last of the five, shall be liable to 24.29% of the total compensation jointly. The case is heard publicly on April 18.
On June 26, Guangzhou Maritime Court pronounced its first-instance judgment on the case, ordered Peng and other four defendants are liable to a total of more than RMB7,820,000 for ecological restoration, pollution and assessment. Yuan shall bear liability within a certain range. The compensation will be turned over to the state treasury for the restoration of the local ecology.
On the morning of June 12th, 2018, the research group first arrived at Shanghai Maritime University. Secretary of the Party Committee Li Xiping and Dean Wang Guohua of Law School of Shanghai Maritime University conducted an in-depth discussion with the research group in the aspects of legal factors hindering the institution innovation of Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone and giving full play to maritime judicial to ensuring the construction of Free Trade Port.
On the afternoon of June 12th, 2018, the research group arrived at Shanghai Maritime Court. Director Jin Xiaofeng of Free Trade Zone Division of Shanghai Maritime Court and the research group had an in-depth exchange of views. Issues such as institutionalized bonded vessel registration to attract the Chinese-funded ships to return , perfecting the integrated endorsement measure on ship entering or exiting ports, improving the judicial measures of maritime courts to safeguarding the construction of Free Trade Zone and Free Trade Port were carried on the through discussion.
On the morning of June 13th, 2018, the research group arrived at East China University of Political Science and Law. Vice Dean Du Tao of International Law School of East China University of Political Science and Law and Executive Vice-President He Xiaoyong of Free Trade Zone Law Institute hold an in-depth discussion with the research group on the issues of the reform of the administrative approval system in the fields of foreign investment management and expanding trade facilitation.
On the morning of June 14th, 2018, the research group arrived at Qingdao Maritime Court. Vice President Li Shouqin of Qingdao Maritime court held talks with the research group focusing on the problems existing in the construction of Weihai China-Korea Free Trade Area, and exchanged views on deepening judicial system reform, strengthening the construction of trial team and the dispatched tribunals.
On the afternoon of June 14th, 2018, the research group arrived at Ocean University of China. Dean of School of Law and Political Science Liu Huirong made in-depth exchanges with the research group on the issues concerning the application of law in the context of Chinese-funded ship companies conducting piggybacking business on cargo imports and exports, the foundation of diversified dispute settlement mechanism of Free Trade Zone and Free Trade Port, the improvement of ship management and the informatization of logistic disposal in Free Trade Port, and disputes over the Maritime Silk Road.
On the afternoon of June 8th, 2018, Vice President Wang Yufei of Guangzhou Maritime Court was invited to attend the forum themed “Focusing on Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Promoting the Innovative Development of Supply Chain” which was held in Nansha District of Guangzhou. Director Deng Yufeng and Vice Director Xu Chunlong of Case-filling Division also attended the forum.
The forum was mainly held by Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Supply Chain Research Institute, supported by the Administrative Committee of Nansha Development Zone and Shanghai Maritime University. More than 300 guests attended the forum including Director Cai Chaolin of Administrative Committee of Nansha Development Zone and President Huang Youfang of Shanghai Maritime University.
The discussion and communicaiton among guests during the forum were focused on the construction and innovation of Nansha Development Zone, the development of blockchain technology and supply chain, opportunities and challenges in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’s future construction and the analysis of current global economic situation.
During the forum, Vice President Wang Yufei had a full exchange of views with some guests on the promotion of maritime judicial service and the facilitation of the developing Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Free Trade Zone.
On the morning of May 31th , 2018, Director Chen Jianhua of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou People’s Congress visited Guangzhou Maritime Court, accompanied by Vice Director Yu Mingyong and Secretary General Chen Xiaoqing of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou People’s Congress, Zheng Liecheng of the Working Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs and Director Hu Aibin of Research Office of the Committee. President and Secretary of Party Leadership Group Ye Liudong and Vice President and Member of the Party Leadership Group Wang Yufei, Members of the Party Leadership Group Dong Qing and Li Weipeng and office ditector Ye Zuxi of Guangzhou Maritime Court attended the research activity.
Director Chen Jianhua and his team visited the litigation service center, the case filing hall, the digital courtroom and Guangzhou International Shipping Justice Research Society of Guangzhou Maritime Court, and watched the display film of Guangzhou Maritime Court.
President Ye Liudong reported to Director Chen Jianhua on the work of Guangzhou Maritime Court in the first half of this year and arrangements in the next half year. President Ye said that Guangzhou Maritime Court had accepted 1034 new cases and closed 648 cases. In the next half year, it will innovate case trial mode and promote the construction of smart court. After listening to the debrief, director Chen highly appreciated the work of Guangzhou Maritime Court, saying that it’s trial work has always been in the forefront of ten maritime courts in China, and it has attained an international reputation with its effectiveness enforcement and strong trial teams.
Director Chen also requested that Guangzhou Maritime Court should solve practical problems to promote the overall construction of itself. Firstly, site selection and reconstruction of Shenzhen and Zhuhai dispatched courts. Secondly, strengthen its self-construction and attach importance to the training of talents to build an international maritime trial team. Thirdly, strengthen the construction of smart court and boost equal justice through judicial openness. Finally, enhance cases mediation through the cooperation with Arbitration Committee. Meanwhile, it should base on Guangzhou Maritime Judicial Research Society to convene academic conferences and collect conference papers into electronic journal.
Director Chen also said that this year “Nansha Action” will be carried out in Guangzhou to utterly regulate the behavior of dumping rubbish at Pearl River Estuary, Guangzhou Maritime Court should enhance the publicity of environmental civil public interest litigation with the Committee jointly so as to set up good examples in the field of environmental public interest litigation.
President and Secretary of Party Leadership Group of Guangzhou Maritime Court Ye Liudong held talks with the visiting Vice President and Member of the Party Leadership Group of Xiamen Maritime Court Zhou Hongyan on the morning of June 1st, 2018. They exchanged views in the fields of impartial trial, judicial reform, team construction and informatization. Director Tian Xingyu of Fuzhou Court of Xiamen Maritime Court, Office Director Guo Wuhuan, Director Chen Pingping of Admiralty Division and Judge Assistant You Caimo of Case-filing Division also participated in it.
President Ye stressed that on the occasion of the establishment of 34th anniversary of Guangzhou Maritime Court, it’s a great pleasure to welcome Vice President Zhou. In March 23th, our trial operational departments moved into the new trial building as well as the opening ceremony of “Guangzhou Maritime Judical Base of the Supreme Court” and Portuguese nations judicial culture exhibition were held in March 27th. Also, we have advanced facilities and complete function in technology courtroom, litigation service center and executive command center, all judges work with their full enthusiasm.With the deepening of the judicial reform of our court, the maritime trial center has been established and operated well, the work of dispatched court has been advancing in an orderly way, those makes this year’s key tasks a sooth start.
Vice President Zhou thanked President Ye for taking time out of his busy schedule for her to visit the new trial building and introduce the advanced experiences of Guangzhou Maritime Court. As two adjacent special courts, Xiamen and Guangzhou Maritime Courts assist and cooperate with each other in trial enforcement work and jointly provide high-quality judicial services for national maritime power strategy. Guangzhou Maritime Court is located at the frontier city of reform and opening up, with varieties of cases, stable judge teams, fruitful trial experiences and accumulated many typical cases which can be written into Chinese maritime trial history, and rich experiences in team management, information construction, these are well worth learning for Xiamen Maritime Courts.
Director Deng Yufeng introduced some measures taken in case-filing to promote the split-flow of complicated and easy cases to Vice President Zhou. Director Ni Xuewei introduced the specific practice in personnel management and case trial of dispatched tribunals. Director Song Weili introduced appraisal and evidence preservation of ship collision, marine pollution and mariculture cases. Director Zhao Zongwen introduced experiences in informatization and the construction of technology courtroom.
Case of Legal Review of Illegal Act Subject to Administrative Penalty on the Ship Deemed to Cause Accident written by Judge Yang Yaxiao of Guangzhou Maritime Court won the second prize for Excellent Research of the Fifth National Administrative Trial in 2017.
Maritime Administrative Division of Guangzhou Maritime Court has made remarkable achievements in the field of maritime administrative trial since it resumed independent work and the jurisdiction of maritime administrative cases in 2012. In 2014, Case of Administrative Dispute Over the Revocation of Warrant of the Right to Use the Sea Area of Chen Yiming against Lianjiang Municipal Government [( 2012) GHFXCZ No.1]selected in “Selected Cases of Maritime Trials in China”, was also the only maritime administrative case selected in the list of fifty selected cases of 30th anniversary of establishment of maritime court. Case of Administrative Punishment Over Anhui Changhui Transportation and Trade Co., Ltd against Xuwen Maritime Safety Administration [( 2015) GHFXCZ No.4] was selected as one of the “ Ten Model Maritime Cases” by the Supreme People’s Court in 2016.
In the past five years, Maritime Administrative Division has kept the record of zero rate of retrial of maritime administrative cases. It’s a great affirmation for Guangzhou Maritime Court effectively exercises the exclusive jurisdiction in maritime administrative trial to win the authorized award in the field of administrative trial among national courts.
On the afternoon of May, 26th , 2018, Dean Chu Beiping and Professor Li Tiansheng of Law School of Dalian Maritime University paid a visit to Guangzhou Maritime Court. Entrusted by President Ye Liudong, Vice President Wang Yufei, accompaned by Director Ni Xuewei, gave a warm welcome to Dean Chu..
On the basis of the initial cooperation intention reached last year, Vice President Wang and Dean Chu further discuss the detailed solutions and steps of cooperation so as to promote the implementation as soon as possible after getting approval of the superiors.
Vice President Wang pointed out that the work on maritime trial is facing numerous new opportunities, challenges and problems. Building tight cooperation with the law school of the best maritime university in China is conducive to not only improve the quality and efficiency of the trial work of Guangzhou Maritime Court, but also help the court to lead in the construction of building Guangzhou into an international maritime judicial center.
Dean Chu expressed gratitude to Vice President Wang for the warm reception and said that Guangzhou Maritime Court fully deserves the honor of being the first-class maritime court of China by leading at the forefront among courts throughout the country in aspects of trial, investigation and research, team construction and informalization. The deep cooperation, especially in the development and utilization of case trial, case compiling and informatization, is a win-win measures which is beneficial for making advantages complementary to each other, resource sharing and mutual promotion.
Vice President Wang accompanied the guests to visit the Guangzhou Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People’s Court, Guangzhou International Shipping Judicial Seminar, Trial Service Center and Case Filling Hall. The guests spoke highly of the elegant decoration of courtrooms, the modern trial equipments and the humanized conference rooms and indicated a willingness to convene some relevant international conferences in our court.
On the morning of May 26th , 2018, the inaugural meeting of Shipping Law Research Society of Guangdong Province Law Society, Guangzhou Shipping Law Research Society and Shipping Law Research Society of Guangzhou Law Society, and shipping law seminar were sucessfully held in the international hall of South Normal University.
Leaders including Liang Debiao, Vice Chairman of Guangzhou Law Society, Tan Xiaohong, Vice President of Guangzhou Social Sciences Association, Xu Muquan, Vice Inspector of the Politics and Law Committee of Guangzhou Municipal Committee and Vice Chairman of Guangzhou Law Society, Yang Xiaosheng, Secretary of School of Law of South Normal University and over 100 peoples including judges, lawyers, arbitrators and collegiate scholars from Guangdong or other provinces attended the convention. Guangzhou Maritime Judges Association co-organized the convention and Secretary General Ni Xuewei attended the full convention.
The establishment of Shipping Law Research Society of Guangdong Province Law Society, Guangzhou Shipping Law Research Society and Shipping Law Research Society of Guangzhou Law Society will provide strong theoretical and academic support for the construction of Guangzhou Free Trade Port, building Guangzhou into an international shipping center as well as better playing the lead role in building Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into the world-class major shipping hub. The purposes of these three research societies is to keep a foothold in Guangzhou and radiate its influence across South China, link with home and abroad so as to better serve the overall situation of reform and opening up and the construciton of rule of law in China.
At the following seminar, Chu Beiping, leader of Maritime Commercial Law amendment research group of Ministry of Transport and Dean of Law School of Dalian Martime University, made a lively speech on the background, thoughts, key points of Maritime Commercial Law amendment. Ni Xuewei, Secretary General of Guangzhou Maritime Judges Association started with the hot issues on maritime trial at present in his speech. He introduced the train of thought in trial and diffculties in cases involving releasing goods without bill of lading, ship collision, oil pollution at sea, arrest and auction of ships. Feng Suijiang, Member of Standing Committee of Guangzhou Nansha People’s Political Consultative Conference,gave opinions on the experiences in the construction of foreign free trade ports and the strengths and weakness of Guangzhou in the construction of free trade port. He also discuss the consrtuction path of Nansha Free Trade Port comprehensively.
On May 24th, 2018, the annual symposium of “the Belt and Road” judicial research center of the Supreme People’s Court was held at Institute of Law of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Zhang Yongjian, director of Civil Adjudication Tribunal NO.4 of the Supreme People’s Court, attended the meeting and delivered an important speech. Chen Su, director of Institute of Law of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, made the welcome address. Ni Xuewei, judge of Guangzhou Maritime Court, was invited to attend the meeting.
Wang Shumei, vice director of Civil Adjudication Tribunal NO.4 of the Supreme People’s Court, hosted the meeting and presented the above-mentioned tribunal’s main work in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, the Tribunal will conduct a specific investigation on abitration-related judicial review, strengthen the construciton of the three bases in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and publish maritime trial white paper of the last three years, including ten representative maritime cases in 2017. Also, the Tribunal will hold the fifth national maritime trial work conference and publish ten maritime trial guiding cases, which plays an active role in the ongoing “Maritime Commercial Law” amendment.
Nineteen bases under the administrationthe Tribunal reported their last year’s work and this year’s arrangements.
Judege Ni Xuewei reported the main work of Guangzhou International Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People's Court from May 12th 2017,the foundation date of the Base, till the end of 2017, Firstly, the Base actively won the support of CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee, People’s Government of Guangdong Province and Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province to finish the design and decoration on the tenth floor and eleventh floor of the rooftop in its new trial building, which was completedin March, 2018. Secondly, to positively answered the call of the national strategy of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area construction, ittook the lead in publishing maritime trial white paper in Chinese, English and Portuguese. Thirdly, itcompleted the special research report on “The Law and Judicial Response to International Famous Shipping Companies’ Cross Border Insolvency ”, which was an action to the new situation in the field of maritime trial.
On Mar27th, 2018,president Zhouqiangannounced the opening of the base officially. The point of this year’s work is to set up an expert committee whose members are leading experts in maritime commercial law bothat home and overseas, to guide the Base’s work.We will hold an international maritime law high-end seminar with maritime commercial law experts from China, Japan and Korea as well as maritime scholars, maritime judges, maritime arbitrators and maritime lawyers at home and overseas. China Maritime Trial will revised, including the base as one of the publishers.
In his remarks, Dirctor Zhang Yongjian said that this was the third conference convened by the Tribunal. Last year, 19 bases carried out various activities, submitted fruitful researches; therefore promoted the construction of the international maritime judicial center. In the future, the bases should take“the Belt and Road Initiative”, the construction of free trade zone Yangtze River Economic Belt and maritime ecological protection as the center to practice judicial trial, conduct prospective, targeted and reserved researches, publish high-level papers, promote trial theoretical innovation and make achievements on the trial of cases involving foreign-related commercial and maritime affairs.
On the morning of Mar.27th, 2018, Guangzhou International Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People's Court(SPC) officially established at Guangzhou Maritime Court. Zhou Qiang, President of the SPC and He Zhongyou, Secretary of the Standing Committee and the Politics and Law Committee of Guangdong Municipal Committee, jointly inaugurated the Base. Liu Guixiang, Full-time Member of the Judicial Committee and Director of 1st Circuit Court of the SPC, gave a speech. Gong Jiali, President of Guangdong Supreme People’s Court hosted the launching ceremony. Ye Liudong, President of Guangzhou Maritime Court declared for the establishment of the Base. Delegation members from Portuguese-speaking countries, also joint the unveiling ceremony and visited and base.
Li Shaoping and Tao Kaiyuan, Vice-presidents of the SPC, Cen Haohui, President of Court of Final Appeal of the Macao Special Administrative Region, Liu Xiaoyun, President of Shanghai Supreme People’s Court, Wu Xielin, President of Fujian Supreme People’s Court, Huang Hailong, President of the Supreme People’s Court of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region attended the ceremony.
Paul Sarnia, President of Supreme People’s Court of Guinea-Bissau, Andriano Manuel Mugabe, President of Supreme People’s Court of Mozambique, António Silva Henriques Gaspar, President of Supreme People’s Court of Portugal, Manuel Silva Gomez Gravide, President of Supreme People’s Court of The Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Christian Morales De Abriel Silva, Vice-president of Supreme People’s Court of Angola, Jahmi Maltese DE Oliveira, Chairman of Federal Judge Association of Brazil, Antoinette Tutu Mun Guruafana, Vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court of Equatorial Guinea attended the ceremony on invitation.
The establishment of Guangzhou International Maritime Judicial Base of the SPC will help to strengthen the communication between academics and practice in international maritime justice, and earn a wider recognition from foreign peers on the maritime justice of China, so as to further improve the international influence of maritime justice of China. The Base will present a good legal environment by holding high-level, professional international maritime justice seminar and related training regularly or irregularly, to further improve the international influence of maritime justice of China, which has important significance to the promotion of building China into an international maritime judicial center. Holding maritime case research and publicity irregularly through the platform of Guangzhou International Maritime Judicial Base of the Supreme People's Court to present China’s maritime judicial experience, could help raising the voice and improving the influence of China in the international maritime judicial rule making.
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