International Conference “One Country,Two Systems, Three Legal Orders”

Beginning tomorrow, February 5th, at 9:30am, in the Lotus Room of the World Trade Center, is the International Conference “One Country, Two Systems, Three Legal Orders – Perspectives of Evolution”, organised within the scope of the Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field between the European Union and Macao. This conference – one of the most significant ever held in Macao within the legal field – will count on the participation of a number of experts from around the world, namely Australia, Canada, Cape Verde, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao will equally be represented by some of their most renowned experts in the field of Public Law. Standing out amongst the participants that will be meeting in Macao throughout three days (February 5th, 6th and 7th) are Oskar Peterlini, Senatore della Repubblica (Senator from Italy); Wang Zhenmin, Professor of Law and Vice Dean of the School of Law of the University of Tsinghua and Member of the Macao and Hong Kong Basic Law Committees; Eduardo Cabrita, Secretary of State of the Portuguese Government; Vitalino Canas, MP of the Republic of Portugal; Albert Chen, Professor of Law at the Hong Kong University and member of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee; Gomes Canotilho, Professor of Law at the University of Coimbra in Portugal; Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Senior Researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in France; Stephen Wong, Deputy Solicitor General of the Hong Kong SAR; Huang Jin, Professor of Law and Vice-Dean of the University of Wuhan; Manuel Porto, Professor of Law at the University of Coimbra in Portugal; Jorge Carlos Fonseca, Former Minister for Foreign Affairs from Cape Verde; Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law of Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal; and Hans-Joachim Heintze, Professor of Law and Senior Researcher at the Ruhr-Univesity Bochum in Germany. The conference’s opening ceremony will be presided by the Secretary for Administration and Justice, H.E. Florinda Chan, who will deliver the welcome address. The opening ceremony will also count on addresses to the audience by Thomas Roe, Head of the Office of the European Union Commission in Hong Kong and Macao, and Jorge Costa Oliveira, Project Director of the Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field between the European Union and Macao. After the opening ceremony, the remainder of the first day of the conference (February 5th) will be entirely dedicated to panel 1, entitled “Evolution and Interaction of the three legal systems: Romano-Germanic, Common Law, Socialist”. Taking place on the second day of the conference (February 6th) are sessions relating to panel 2 and 3, which will tackle, respectively, the “Evolution of the judicial systems – role of public prosecution, role of the lawyers, specialised courts, judicial guarantees of fundamental rights” and the “Autonomy – a comparative approach: purpose, origins, international foundations, structures, financial aspects, evolution”. The third and last day (February 7th) will be comprised by sessions relating to panel 4 and 5, respectively devoted to the “Autonomy within the P.R. of China – S.A.R.s et alii; purpose, origins, structures and evolution” and the “Fundamental Rights and Interaction of the Legal Systems”. At the end of the debate, there will be a closing ceremony where Sam Hou Fai, President of the Macao’s Court of Final Appeals will deliver a closing speech. This conference is organised by the International Law Office, the Legal and Judicial Training Centre and the Institute of European Studies of Macao and will have a participation of around 200 persons, between guest speakers and local enrollers, the majority being Law degree holders. The Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field between the European Union and Macao, in which this conference is integrated, has as its main objective the “Consolidation of the Macao Legal System” and is now in its last phase of implementation, taking place until the end of the current month of February. The total budget for the programme is of 1.980.000 euros, shared in equal parts by the European Union and Macao. The co-ordination of the Co-operation Programme is at the responsibility of the International Law Office, being the organisation of the pertaining activities ensured by several other entities of the MSAR’s Government, namely the Legal and Judicial Training Centre, the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Economic Services and the Institute of European Studies, other than the International Law Office itself.