The Honourable Chief Justice Of Singapore Sundaresh Menon leads a delegation to Beijing, fostering cooperation and deepening ties between the judiciaries of Singapore and China.
The Honourable Chief Justice of Singapore Sundaresh Menon, along with a delegation of Judges and senior officers from the Supreme Court of Singapore, recently embarked on a four-day visit to Beijing for the seventh Singapore-China Legal and Judicial Roundtable. Co-chaired by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and the President and Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of China, His Excellency Zhang Jun, the Roundtable took place on November 28, 2023.
This year’s Roundtable was particularly significant, marking Chief Justice Zhang’s appointment as President of the SPC in March 2023. After three years of virtual meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this edition returned to an in-person setting. Both Chief Justices utilized the opportunity to strengthen bilateral ties and broaden the scope of judicial cooperation, a tradition initiated since the inaugural Roundtable in 2017.
A testament to the enduring friendship and commitment to justice delivery, the Supreme Court of Singapore and the SPC have signed four Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) and one Memorandum of Guidance (MoG) between 2017 and 2023. Notably, a Strategic Roadmap on judicial cooperation was established in early 2023 to guide future Roundtables.
In his opening remarks, Chief Justice Zhang emphasized the forward-looking, strategic, and exemplary nature of relations between the two countries. The bilateral commitment was further solidified when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Xi Jinping upgraded relations to an “All-Round, High-Quality, Future-Oriented Partnership” in March 2023.
Chief Justice Menon, in agreement, highlighted the Roundtable’s significance in the six years since its inception. It has evolved into a valuable platform for judicial cooperation, facilitating the exchange of ideas and experiences between the judiciaries of Singapore and China.
At the seventh Roundtable, both judiciaries discussed best practices and exchanged perspectives on crucial topics, including the role of judiciaries in building a transnational system of commercial justice, technical fact-finding mechanisms for intellectual property cases, recent developments in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, and the effective and speedy resolution of cases concerning the judicial supervision of arbitration.
During the visit, Chief Justice Menon engaged with key figures, including the Secretary-General of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, Mr. Chen Wenqing. He also visited various legal institutions in Beijing, delivering a lecture on “Transnational Commercial Law and the Development of the Modern-day Lex Mercatoria.”
Source – SG Courts
