Chief Justices of Supreme Court of Singapore and Supreme People's Court of China strengthen bilateral ties at the seventh Singapore-China Roundtable

SINGAPORE, Dec. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The seventh Singapore-China Legal and Judicial Roundtable convened in Beijing on 28 November 2023. Co-chaired by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and the President and Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of the People's Republic of China, His Excellency Zhang Jun, this year's Roundtable was especially meaningful for both Chief Justices, given Chief Justice Zhang's appointment as President of the SPC in March 2023.

The two Chief Justices met to deepen the strong bilateral ties between the two judiciaries and expand the scope of judicial cooperation. A clear testament to the enduring friendship and commitment to enhance the delivery of justice in their respective jurisdictions, the Supreme Court of Singapore and the SPC have signed a total of four Memoranda of Understanding and one Memorandum of Guidance between 2017 and 2023. The two judiciaries also jointly launched a compendium of Singapore-China international commercial cases curated for their relevance to the Belt and Road Initiative in 2020. In early 2023, a Strategic Roadmap on the five pillars of bilateral partnership was established to guide the course of future Roundtables.

Speaking at the seventh Roundtable, Chief Justice Zhang reiterated that relations between the two countries were forward-looking, strategic and exemplary. Similarly, Chief Justice Menon said that in the six years since its inception, the Roundtable has established itself as a valuable platform for judicial cooperation and the exchange of ideas and experiences between the two courts. At the Roundtable, both courts shared their best practices and exchanged their perspectives on:

a. The role of judiciaries in building a transnational system of commercial justice;
b. Technical fact-finding mechanism for intellectual property cases;
c. Recent developments in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments; and
d. Effective and speedy resolution of cases concerning the judicial supervision of arbitration.

During the four-day trip, Chief Justice Menon visited the Beijing Internet Court, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, and the National Judges College, among others, where he delivered a lecture on "Transnational Commercial Law and the Development of the Modern-day Lex Mercatoria".

For more information, visit www.judiciary.gov.sg