CE stresses steadfast adherence to law-based governance

The Chief Executive, Mr Ho Iat Seng, underlined the Government’s steadfast adherence to law-based governance, combined with unceasing effort to advance the city’s mechanisms for public administration, and the efficacy and efficiency of rule of law.

Mr Ho made the remarks in a speech delivered at a ceremony held at the Macao Cultural Centre, marking the start of the 2020/2021 Judicial Year.

Firmly adhering to rule of law was a fundamental principle of the Government, Mr Ho said. The Government would dedicate further effort to ensuring the unity of the community; to upholding the Constitution and the Basic Law; to promoting and safeguarding rule of law; to bolstering career development of legal professionals; to advancing through legal perspective reform and the city’s development; and to upholding impartiality and justice.

The Government would, as always, safeguard judicial independence and the dispensation of justice via the legal system, while supporting the functioning of the judiciary and respecting and executing decisions made by it, Mr Ho said. The Government would give its support to the training of legal professionals and the construction of buildings to house judicial bodies.

Currently, the Government was pressing ahead with the planning for new offices for, respectively, the Court of First Instance, the Court of Second Instance and the Court of Final Appeal. These would help create an even better working environment for Macao’s judiciary to dispense justice more efficiently and effectively.

In his speech, the Chief Executive pointed out that the city’s judicial system had made unparalleled contributions to Macao’s prosperity and stability, in terms of exercising the power of judicial independence as vested by the Basic Law.

In facing the future, the Government would work closely with judicial and legal professionals to create an even better environment for rule of law, and for the promotion jointly of the practice of law-based governance as stipulated in the Basic Law, Mr Ho said.

The President of the Court of Final Appeal, Mr Sam Hou Fai, the Public Prosecutor-General, Mr Ip Son Sang, and the President of the Macau Lawyers Association, Mr Jorge Neto Valente, each gave a speech during today’s ceremony marking the start of the 2020/2021 Judicial Year.

Among the approximately 250 officials attending the event were: the President of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Kou Hoi In; the Secretary for Administration and Justice, Mr Cheong Weng Chon; the President of the Independent Committee for the Nomination of Judges, Mr Lau Cheok Va; representatives respectively of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR and of the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in the Macao SAR; other principal officials of the Macao SAR; members of the Executive Council; officials of judicial authorities; members of the Legislative Assembly; and other officials of the Macao SAR.