The Special Commission on Inter-Regional Conflict of Laws of the Chinese Society of Private International Law Organized Its Third Annual Symposium on Inter-Regional Taking of Evidence Within China

This Report is prepared by Prof. Guangjian Tu/Zeyu Huang (a PhD Candidate in University of Macau)

On 26 August 2017, one of the Special Commissions of the Chinese Society of Private International Law, the Special Commission on Inter-Regional Conflict of Laws (chaired by Professor Guangjian Tu) organized its third annual symposium titled “Inter-Regional Taking of Evidence Within China: Problems, Reflections and Improvements” under the support of the Chinese Society of Private International Law and the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies of Faculty of Law of University of Macau. Legal scholars and practitioners from the Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau participated in this event on the beautiful newly-built campus of University of Macau, located in the Hengqin Island (Zhuhai City, PRC).

With the Mainland China –Macau Taking of Evidence Arrangement being made in 2001 and the Mainland China-Hong Kong Taking of Evidence Arrangement being promulgated in March 2017, this symposium was devoted to discussing and examining the potential problems, practical implementation and possible improvements of the two Arrangements. Given that at a global level the Hague Evidence Convention is regularly revisited every five years, useful information arising out of the Convention could be very good reference for Chinese Arrangements; the enhanced version of the Hague Evidence Convention, the EU Evidence Regulation could provide valuable experience to Chinese practice. While emphasis was put on the special features of the two Arrangements, international and foreign ideas and approaches were paid enough attention. It is suggested that within the Chinese Context, for the cross-border taking of evidence, shorter route between court to court could be explored, direct taking of evidence on voluntary witnesses is potentially possible and modern technologies could be made more use of.