Ma Huijuan
Deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and vice-president of the Beijing Lawyers Association
Three characteristics should be highlighted in the work of the Beijing International Commercial Court (BICC). Firstly, it focused on serving and guaranteeing the high-quality development of the capital city, when it played its role and performed its duty. Secondly, it deepens reforms, and adheres to the rules while innovating, promoting the development of the foreign-related commercial judicial system and judicial capacity. The Beijing court system has always been at the forefront of court systems nationwide in terms of reform and innovation, from the intellectual property court, the financial court and the internet court to the local second international commercial court, which not only meets the needs of reform and development but also conforms to the characteristics and requirements of the capital. The achievements made by the BICC in the past year have played a significant role in promoting the growth of the capital's economy and trade. Thirdly, over the past year, the international commercial trials of the BICC balanced fairness and efficiency well, making prominent contributions to optimizing the business environment. The court's trial efficiency was quite high, and the cost was lower compared to some regions abroad. In the future, the court should make greater innovative explorations on the basis of balancing fairness and efficiency.
Regarding the construction of the BICC, I would like to put forward several suggestions. Firstly, emphasis should be put on the requirements of Chinese-style modernization for the capital's international commercial trial work. Beijing should be the first to basically achieve modernization nationwide. It is not only a high requirement but also may face many uncertain factors. The international commercial trial system should fully play its leading role in serving and guaranteeing the task, and shoulder the mission of ensuring security and promoting justice. Secondly, efforts should be made to strengthen communication and cooperation and extensively consolidate resources and strengths. Beijing is the leader in many areas, and the BICC should be a pioneer. It is necessary to widely gather the support of various parties. Combining litigation with mediation and arbitration is a task that needs to be vigorously explored in the future, and valuable experience can be obtained through this practical exploration. Thirdly, it is important to further practice the people-centered philosophy of development. For judges and lawyers, a case may be a job or a pile of documents or files, but it may be a matter of life and safety for a party in a case, happiness and well-being for a family, and survival or death for an enterprise and its employees. Therefore, the people-centered philosophy should be implemented in every specific case. Fourthly, focus should be put on the practical situation and characteristics of the capital city to lift the work of foreign-related litigation to a new level. With numerous judicial cases and many new and difficult problems in the capital city, it is critical to prepare well for the increase in foreign-related cases, make good use of external strengths such as arbitration and mediation, and do a good job of connection, transfer, communication and guarantee to ensure the smooth connection between the court system and external forces. Fifthly, endeavors should be made to enhance judicial digitization. We need to think about how to improve the court's digitization, further facilitate case filing and trials, and elevate the satisfaction of the people with the judiciary’s work through technological assistance. Sixthly, since international commercial litigation has its own particularities, it is necessary to establish a mechanism of talent selection, cultivation, employment, and retention that meets the needs of foreign-related commercial trials. For issues such as household registration, promotion, training, and children's enrollment in school, better policies should be provided to attract, use, and retain talents.
