When the eighth national Constitution Day comes, on December 3rd, 2021, GZMC inaugurated the ceremony of Pledging Allegiance to the Constitution of the PRC, and Oath of Office for newly-appointed judges. The theme of the ceremony was “Elevate Nomocracy Spirit, and Strengthen Political Faith”.   The ceremony started with bailiffs carrying the Five-starred Red Flag into the venue, and all attendants stood up and sang the National Anthem of the PRC. During the ceremony, the newly-appointed judge Liming Zhao swore an Oath of Office with his hands touching the constitution. After that, guided by Chao Chen, Secretary of the Leading Party Group and the president of GZMC, all political-legal workers of GZMC pledged allegiance to the constitution of the PRC.   When the pledging was completed, the song “Asking Your Raised Hands” composed by Hong’an Wu, was performed by the composer. The impassioned singing had delivered the political-legal workers’ loyalty and faith to the constitution of the PRC, the country, and the people.  The oath ceremony inaugurated this time was an important action to thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, move forward on the study and education of the Party’s history, and execute the advanced education and rectification for the political-legal team. It encouraged all political-legal workers to perform duties in accordance with the law, be faithful to the constitution, strengthen their faith and move forward. The ceremony was also meant to promote the spirit of nomocracy, strengthen political faith, improve the capability of performing political duties, and promote incorruptibility, so that the political-legal team can be built into a loyal, clean, and invincible team.

  On November 17th, 2021, the 33th Sub-provincial City’s Forum of Rule of Law was convened in Guangzhou. The theme of the forum was “New Concept · New Perspective: Law-based Business Environment and High-quality Development”. Scholars, practitioners and social workers in jurisprudence and legal system from 15 sub-provincial cities participated in the forum through the integration of online and in-person attendance. Sujun Zhang, member of the Leading Party Group and vice president of China Law Society, attended the forum virtually and gave a speech. Xinghuan Lv, director of the Membership Department of China Law Society, announced the reward and commending decision. Bin Jiang, vice president of Guangdong Province Law Society, spoke in the forum meeting. Xiaodan Xie, Secretary of the Standing Committee and Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CPC Guangzhou Municipal Committee, president of Guangzhou City Law Society, attended the forum meeting and gave a speech.   The vice president Yufei Wang gave a guest speech in the synchronous forum of which the theme was “Building of Foreign-related Legal System and Opening-up based on Rules and Related Institutions”. The title of his speech was “Legal Right Protection for International Crew under the Context of Normalization of Pandemic Prevention and Control—Practicing Experience of GZMC’s Case Handling on ‘Angelica Power’ based on Law”. Wang pointed out in the speech that GZMC had protected the legal rights and interests of International Crew efficiently by giving more attention to cases related to the pandemic’s impact on international crew’s legal rights and interests, strictly following the country’s foreign-related laws and signed international treaties, and being dedicated to facilitating interaction and integration of domestic laws and international laws, so as to provide service and guarantee for the construction of “the Belt and Road Initiative” and “Dual Zone”.   Wang used the case of the Greek ship “Angelica Power” as a starting point, introduced GZMC’s six judicial guarantee principles on handling cases related to international crew disputes. First, initiatively and precisely referring to international treaties when it’s needed. Second, further development of linkage mechanism and facilitating the implementation of the third party managed security service. Third, using “Virtual Jurisdiction” as a complement to serve the involved foreign parties more efficiently. Forth, expressing warmth of the jurisdiction by offering foreign litigants humanistic consideration. Fifth, enhancing and clarifying litigation guidance to help foreign litigants defend their legal rights according to law. Sixth, ensuring procedural justice and regulating foreign ship arrest and auction procedures.   Zhenrong Luo, a judge assistant from Research Office of GZMC, had attended all related activities of the forum.  

Recently, the High People’s Court of Guangdong Province posted the progress of the 2021 election for “The Most Beautiful People’s Tribunal” and “The Most Beautiful grassroots Judge”.Jing Wen,head of Zhanjiang Tribunal of GZMC, had won the election.   Since 2005, when Jing Wen joined GZMC, she had been working in maritime tribunals of GZMC and staying on the frontline of maritime trial. “We should let the people see that justice is served in every case tried by using our honest, fair and righteous attitude, Not only the party winning the lawsuit has to be satisfied, But also the one who loses ” had always been her motto. Jing Wen had won the satisfaction and compliment from the people, by promoting clean government and being dedicated to her job.    

For the purpose of going further on making efforts to serve the people, responding actively to people’s attention paid to enforcement cases, and further enhancing people’s sense of benefit for maritime enforcement, according to the requirement and arrangement of the Supreme People’s Court of P.R.C and Guangdong High People’s Court, Guangzhou Maritime Court (GZMC) had held an event of focused issuance of executed money. The event had issued 15 sums of money, and the total amount was over 24 million CNY. 3 applicants picked up their issued money at GZMC in-person, while 12 crews applied and drew their issued amount through online video chat due to the reason of still being on-board and pandemic prevention and control policy. Starting from this year, GZMC had achieved the completion of enforcement worth more than 300 million CNY, and the in-place enforcement proportion of first enforcement cases was 22.03%, ranked fifth among all courts in Guangdong province. The proportion of cases that the enforcees had money or property for enforcement concluded by statutory time limit for concluding trials was 98%, ranked second among all courts in the province. The qualified rate of the execution measures of  ending this executive procedureis 100%.The completion rate of execution items within the entrusted period is 100% .The execution of enforcement measurements was completed in good condition. Currently, GZMC has fully implemented management system for executed money, and uses exclusive serial number for each case. The automatic matching rate for executed money is therefore higher than the average of the province, which has provided a solid base for executed money to be issued on time, safely and efficiently.

  In order to enhance clerks’ sense of identity, sense of belonging and sense of honor for Guangzhou Maritime Court, and get further understanding about their working and living condition, Zongwen Zhao had arranged a training session on behalf of the Party Branch of Enforcement Department for four clerks in the morning of November 8th, 2021. The theme of the training was further communication and comprehensive capability improvement.   The contents for improving comprehensive capability were delivered by Zhao using his personal experiences. Zhao pointed out that young clerks should first, reinforce the learning of ideological theories, be firm in their political stance, and stay loyal to their political conviction. Second, they should follow the rules, be open to the teams and dedicated to their jobs, and provide various ancillary services with devoted attitude. Third, clerks should keep on learning both their professional knowledges and other comprehensive professions. They should adjust and improve themselves from time to time in their work. By learning from other colleagues and drawing lessons from the past, clerks should enhance their comprehensive quality from all aspects. Forth, clerks should have a practical attitude toward the gap between ideality and reality. They should be dedicated to their jobs and be down-to-earth when having their goals set high. Finally, Zhao ended the session by quoting chairman Jinping Xi’s quote: “The shine of youth comes out from grinding, and the sublimation of life comes from fighting.”  

  In the morning of November 10th, 2021, the Level IV Division Rank Official of the Regulation Division, Chaojie Fu, and the Marine Safety Investigating Officer of the Maritime Traffic Division of Shantou MSA, Shaozhong Guo, came to Shantou Maritime Tribunal and communicated about some universal law issues encountered in maritime work. The two institutions had an in-depth exchange of views about recognition of administrative counterpart of a maritime administrative action, evidence collection in maritime accident investigation, and delivery of maritime administrative punishment. Ruiqiu Song had provided professional insights and suggestions to each of the issue mentioned above.   In order to maintain maritime traffic safety and promote administration by law, both institutions had come to an agreement that it’s necessary to build and integrate platforms by using the Party Branch’s force to enhance working communication, and have discussions about related ship collision cases starting from the date when the cases were concluded and the judgement became effective.  

  In the afternoon of November 5th, the 2021 Guangdong Maritime Trial Working Conference was held in Guangzhou Maritime Court (GZMC). The executive vice-president and the Deputy Secretary of the Leading Party  Members’ Group of the High People’s Court of Guangdong Province, Zhong Jianping attended the conference and gave a speech. The president and the Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group of GZMC, Chen Chao, spoke on the conference. The working conference was presided by the vice-president and member of the Leading Party Members’ Group of GZMC, Wang Yufei. There were over 60 attendants, including judges and judge assistants from GZMC and  Guangdong High People’s Court.      Vice-president Zhong Jianping mentioned in his speech that judges and judge teams working in maritime trials should stay loyal to their political conviction, be responsible and against corruption, and ensure the purity of judicial process. Zhong also mentioned that the efficiency and quality of maritime trial case handling should be improved, and there should be more attention paid in research and case analysis. In conclusion, the efforts mentioned above should be made in order to better complete the maritime trial works for Guangdong province in the new era.      Chao pointed out that doing a good job in maritime trial is both meaningful and honorable. GZMC should take this conference as an opportunity and play its role of handling foreign-related maritime cases to the largest extent. It should also take solid steps to implement strategies that do ensure and improve maritime trial quality, and make further efforts to unify the standards of judgement. GZMC should provide guarantee and high-quality judicial service for building the Greater Bay Area.     The Deputy Chief Judge of the Forth Civil Division of Guangdong High People’s Court, Rao Qing, reported the information about maritime trials in Guangdong High People’s Court in 2020. Among the 196 closed, second-instance maritime cases, 22 were changed from their original judgements, and 2 were remanded for retrial. The rate of judgement amendment or retrial was 12.2%. According to the 2020 case handling overview, first-instance maritime cases were handled with better quality, and the rate of judgement amendment or retrial had been kept on a relatively low level. The statistics conveyed that the working strategy of maritime trial communication developed by the courts of Guangdong at two levels had achieved significant improvement in unifying standards of maritime judgement and improving the maritime trial quality of Guangdong province. The Head of Adjudication Management Office, Liang Zhanxin, the Deputy Chief Judge of the Forth Civil Division, Gu Enzhen, and the judge of the Case-filing Division of Guangdong High People’s Court, Wang Xiaoqin, gave a lecture about their methods and experiences of writing issuance of judgement and case analysis. Judges and judge assistants discussed complicated issues such as law application for sea towage contract dispute.

  In order to enhance the clerks’ comprehensive quality and improve their ability to perform duties, and the work in Law Enforcement Division can thereby be completed more efficiently, GZMC held a training class on Oct. 30, 2021. GZMC clerks took the class in full attendance. The class was introduced to the clerks by Head of Political Department, Qing Dong, who brought up specific requirements including enhancing one’s political stance, being firm in political conviction and dedicated to one’s work, as well as increasing incorruptible conscious. The class was taught by concentrated lectures. Based firmly on the actual situation of clerks’ working condition, we invited Head of Research Office, Xuewei Ni, Head of Discipline and Supervision Department, Xiaochun Wang, the leader of the financial group of General Office, Tong Peng, to give lectures about the requirements of general quality for clerks, rules and regulations about combating corruption and promoting clean government, and financial works in the court, etc. We also invited senior clerks from our court, Huifen Zeng and Haoyan Shen, to share their experiences of working as court clerks for years, and some case analysis. All attendees had learned the working contents and specific requirement one more time. The group had acquired deeper understanding about more specific details of different working contents in case-filing, trial and enforcement divisions.  

  The inauguration was held by Guangzhou Maritime Court (GZMC) and Jiangmen Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) on October 26, 2021. Liu Sibin, Vice President of GZMC, and Shao Guo, Director of Jiangmen MSA, signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on Legal Service of Water Traffic Safety. According to the memorandum, both sides will develop deeper cooperation in cultivating talents of maritime investigation, making lists of maritime accident investigation experts, and conducting maritime inquiry training, as well as online mediation, investigation and evidence collection, affirmation of ownership of ships, litigation preservation, etc. The foundation of this Center is another joint effort of maritime trial and law enforcement departments to provide better legal service. They have been working together constantly, taking full advantages of their separate expertise and resources. The Center will serve as a convenient point of contact for water traffic related corporations and practitioners to access legal public service and enhance legal consciousness so that disputes can be resolved rapidly before litigation, and social conflicts can be reduced. Liu says the opening of this Center has added a new channel for dispute resolution and has provided new opportunities and experience for the building of maritime legal service platforms that cover coastal and riverside regions in Guangdong. Lai Jiaoming, Deputy Secretary of Jiangmen Politics and Law Committee, describes this cooperation between maritime trial and law enforcement departments as "a living example of 'I do practical things for the masses'". He says "it puts the principles of 'high efficiency, quality and convenience' into practice and raises our awareness of serving the public."  

  Recently, the case-filing division of GZMC received an application for preservation of maritime evidence on a Cyprus ship named M/V PANAMAX AUSTRASIA, due to a general average dispute. The claimant, as the domestic consignee of the cargo carried by the ship, was requested to contribute the loss caused by a grounding accident during the voyage by the ship owner. In order to preserve the evidence relevant to the accident, the claimant filed the application above.   After examining the materials, the case-filing division accepted the application and made an order to adopt measures for preservation of the maritime evidence on September 29, 2021. During the execution of the order, the ship owner stated that they needed time to prepare paperwork. Since the ship planed to depart after unloading the goods during the National Day’s holiday, the owner requested the court to check the evidence to be preserved before its departure. Considering that shipment delay will cause great loss, the staff of case-filing division decided to execute the preservation by giving up their National Day’s holiday. After communicating back and forth, the attorney of the ship owner submitted available evidence to GZMC. However, Clerk Wei Zheng and Xiaotong Zhu figured out that the evidence submitted was not satisfied to the preservation order. They declared the seriousness of the issue to the ship owner and instructed him to abide by the order. After communicating with the ship owner and his Britain lawyer by the attorney, the captain of the ship submitted the evidence met with the request of the preservation order in the next day.   Led by the vice president Jinbiao Deng, the case-filing judge group cautiously examined the evidence list and checked the original files as well as the case description. After hours of examination, the evidence preservation was completed. GZMC connected with Dongguan Maritime Department to release the ship. In the end, GZMC succeeded in the proceedings of evidence gathering, examination and releasing before the scheduled departure time of the ship, which avoided potential great loss to the foreign ship owner.