Guangzhou Maritime Court releases the Annual Report on Trial 2014 in a news conference held on the afternoon of 24 April 2015. Attended the conference are more than 50 people of judges from Guangzhou Maritime Court, experts and scholars of maritime law, delegates of port and shipping enterprises, lawyers, and news reporters.

The Annual Report is in eight parts which dedicates to expounding seven major legal issues in the judicial practice in 2014 concerning electronic evidence, cargo delivery without the original B/L, determination of cargo losses, ship collision damages, fund of limitation of liability for maritime claims, maritime administrative proceedings, and fraudulent lawsuits. Guangzhou Maritime Court has taken steps to analyze the causes as well as the anticipated risks of these cases and further provide risk prevention advices in the form of judicial suggestion to guide relevant departments in policy-making and enterprises in business operation.

    On 24 and 31 January, Guangzhou Maritime Court received two visiting delegations from Hong Kong Seamen’s Union. It’s a 76-people delegation comprising of representatives from Hong Kong Seamen’s Union, Hong Kong Logistics Management Staff Association, a couple of Hong Kong shipping companies and shipping colleges.

    To promote professional skills and comprehensive quality of judicial personnel in handling foreign-related maritime/admiralty cases, Guangzhou Maritime Court held 2014 (Hong Kong) Training Course on Judicial Expertise in Handling Maritime/ Admiralty Cases during the period from 17th to 21st December 2014. Seventeen judges and police officers such as Huang Weiqing, Ni Xuewei and Han Haibin participated in the training. Lecturers of the training are professors from China Legal Service (H.K.) Ltd. under the administration of the Ministry of Justice, Marine Department of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Seamen'.s Union, and School of Law of City University of Hong Kong, who are specialized in dealing with cases in relation to bills of lading and arbitration proceedings. Through this training, participants got acquainted with maritime judicial and arbitration practice of Anglo-American legal systems, which will help Chinese judicial personnel successfully try foreign-related maritime/admiralty cases and popularize trial practice and experience of Chinese maritime courts. 

    Guangdong Maritime Trial Communication and Coordination Meeting 2014 was held on 6^th and 7^th November 2014 in Zhuhai.

    Attending the meeting were more than 70 front-line judges from the Forth Civil Division of Supreme People’s Court, the Forth Civil Division of Guangdong Higher People’s Court and Guangzhou Maritime Court. Mr. Luo Dongchuan, presiding judge of the Forth Civil Division of Supreme People’s Court, and Mr. Huo Min, vice president of Guangdong Higher People’s Court attended the meeting and delivered an important speech.

    Presiding judge Luo highly appreciated the achievements in maritime trail of Guangdong province made over the past three decades and encouraged the judges to keep the spirit of innovation with a view to dipping into and promoting the reform of maritime judicial system. “The mechanism of trial communication and coordination can serve as an exchange platform for and between the two levels of courts, which plays a constructive role to promote a higher efficiency in trail work, a unified judge scale, and to improve the trial work quality” said Huo, the vice president of Guangdong Higher People’s Court.

    During the meeting, the participants had reviewed the trail work of Guangzhou Maritime Court through 2013. In the year of 2013, Guangzhou Maritime Court received 2098 cases, with a subject value totaling RMB6.636 billion, among which, container-involved cases experienced a substantial growth. The average duration for the first instant trial for cases newly received has been substantially cut down. In 2014, the court has witnessed an increase of cases of disputes over damages for ship collision and frequent occurrence of cases of disputes over seafarers’ labor contracts. New changes also include a substantial decrease of cases of disputes arising from procedures and substantial increase of cases of disputes over the registration of creditor’s rights.

     Mr. Du Yixing, the vice presiding judge of the Forth Civil Division of Guangdong Higher People’s Court, reported to the meeting about the remand and amendment during the second trial of maritime cases. The meeting also discussed over issues in relation to trials of cases of disputes over damages for personal injury at sea, acceptance of electronic evidence, rules on evidence, as well as several perplexed issues in maritime trails.

    To deal with the change of areal caseload distribution and to facilitate the parties to litigation of cases, Guangzhou Maritime Court adjusted the distribution of dispatched tribunals. Recently it has withdrawn the Dispatched Tribunal of Jiangmen and added a new dispatched tribunal in Zhuhai, namely the Dispatched Tribunal of Zhuhai, which has been accepting and hearing cases since 29^th, September.

    The Dispatched Tribunal of Zhuhai is located in No.339, Qinglv Middle Road, Zhuhai City.

    On September 2, 2014, the Supreme People’s Court held a seminar with the theme of “playing the role of maritime judiciary, serving and protecting national maritime strategy” and with a view to celebrating the 30^th anniversary of China Maritime trial. The Vice-Chairperson of the National People's Congress (NPC) Wan E’xiang and the President of the Supreme People’s Court Zhou Qiang attended the seminar and gave speeches.

    The vice chairperson of the NPC Wan E’xiang pointed out that over the past 30 years of reform, development and stability of the maritime courts of our state has improved rapidly and established a set of maritime judicial systems whose jurisdiction can cross administrative regions. Featuring the “five high-levelness”, namely, high level of judicial protection system, high quality of judges, high level of jurisdiction, high level of trial specialization and high level of recognition at home and abroad, the maritime trial team have fairly and effectively handled a lot of maritime cases in accordance with laws and provided strong judicial protection for the national reform and opening up, shipping trade and scientific development of maritime economy. We need to speed up cultivation of international maritime judicial talents and focus on developing their comprehensive capabilities of maintaining national maritime sovereignty, handling major international maritime matters and participating in formulation of international maritime conventions and rules in order to ensure that the maritime trial team can not only handle cases in a fair and highly efficient way, but also step forward bravely to protect major interests of our state under key circumstances.

    The president of the Supreme People’s Court Zhou Qiang emphasizes that we need to vigorously implement the strategy of high-quality maritime trials and further strength international credibility of maritime trials. We need to adhere to those value orientations that are widely accepted at home and abroad and conducive to the development of international shipping trade and correctly use those international treaties joined by our state as well as laws of our state in order to effectively maintain international shipping and trade order. We need to stick to the principle of open, fair and highly-efficient trial, make efforts to improve the quality of trials and judgment documents and handle the relationship between equal protection of lawful rights and interests of domestic and foreign parties and promotion of development of foreign trade and shipping undertakings in accordance with laws and fairly handle foreign-related maritime cases in order to build a good image of China’s judiciary. We should also make good use of internet ideas to put forward innovation of maritime and judicial system and mechanism, promote application of information technology in an all-round way and make efforts to realize modernization of maritime trials as well as demonstrate China’s modern judicial civilization to the whole world.

    The feature film 30 years of China Maritime Trials was played during the seminar. Such a film has reviewed the 30-year history of China Maritime Trials and summarized the achievements and experiences over the past 30 years.

    The President of Guangzhou Maritime Court Zhong Jianping, acting as the sole representative of the ten maritime courts across the state, delivered a keynote speech titled “strict performance of the power and authority entitled by constitution and laws and fair trials of foreign-related maritime cases in order to build a good image of our national judiciary”.

    The Vice President of the Supreme People’s Court He Rong, Professional Justice Committee Liu Guixiang, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council Yuan Shuhong, former Vice President of the Supreme People’s Court Li Guoguang attended the meeting. Besides, persons in charge from relevant authorities such as the Law Committee of the Standing Committee of NPC, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce and State Oceanography Bureau, experts and scholars from related colleges and universities and Industry Associations, representatives from shipping and insurance enterprises, special supervisors and advisory representatives from the Supreme People’s Court, persons in charge of related departments from the Supreme People’s Court, those from some High People’s Courts and the ten maritime courts across the state joined the meeting as well.

    On the morning of July 11th 2014, the fourth civil division of the Supreme People’s Court held an internal panel discussion meeting with respect to the Rules on Several Issues concerning Trials of Disputes over Damages arising from Pollution to Marine Resources and Eco-environment (draft) at Guangzhou Maritime Court with the presence and guidance of Mr. Luo Dongchuan, the presiding judge of the fourth civil division of Supreme People’s Court, and Mr. Wang Yanjun, the deputy chief judge. Around twenty representatives from the Higher People’s Court and Maritime Courts concerned attended this internal panel discussion meeting.

    This meeting focuses on discussing and justifying on issues related to the jurisdiction, claimer, compensation scope, loss ascertainment, appraisal on environmental pollution and the enforcement of the damages for public interest litigation arising due to marine pollution.

    On 18 June 2014, court hearing regarding the case of dispute over administrative coercive measures and administrative damages filed by Raoping Honghua Aquatic Production Co., Ltd, against People’s Government of Raoping Town, with Chaozhou Yatai Port Co., Ltd. as a third party, was presided over by this Court.

    The Plaintiff, Raoping Honghua Aquatic Production Co., Ltd., claims an economic loss of 760 million RMB against the Defendant on the ground that the Defendant demolishes his factory buildings and other buildings coercively together with the Third Party involved in this case. After three trails by Chaozhou Intermediate People’s Court and Guangdong Higher People’s Court, this Court is appointed by Guangdong Higher People’s Court to entertain this case. More than one hundred students from the Party School of CPC Guangdong Province Committee attended the court hearing under the arrangement of Guangdong Higher People’s Court.

    The case of dispute over damages for pollution filed by the Administration of Ocean and Fisheries against Kenos Shipping Co., Ltd. and Korea Shipping Association closed by mediation recently.

    In March 2013, the Korean vessel M/V Kenos Athena sank in the Shanwei waters of Guangdong Province. Subsequently the plaintiffs, MSA and the Administration of Ocean and Fisheries, brought actions against the owners and insurer of M/V Kenos Athena. In January 2014, the case filed by MSA closed by mediation.