2016/2017 Judicial Year | CE vows to safeguard courts’ independence

Chui Sai On pictured during yesterday’s ceremony

The Chief Executive (CE) has said that a comprehensive judicial system is indispensable to law-based governance. Chui Sai On made the remarks this afternoon during a ceremony – held at the Macao Cultural Centre – to mark the start of the 2016/2017 Judicial Year.
Safeguarding judicial independence and fairness is one of the core values of Macau’s community, added Chui in his speech. The CE also revealed that the government is pushing ahead with development plans in Zone B – a land reclamation area – for buildings to house administrative and legal bodies.
The president of the Court of Final Appeal, Sam Hou Fai, the Public Prosecutor General, Ip Son Sang, and the president of the Macau Lawyers Association, Jorge Neto Valente, each gave a speech during yesterday’s ceremony.
Sam Hou Fai highlighted that crimes related to gambling should receive special attention. He recalled that gaming-related criminality has gone up by around 38 percent, resulting from an increase of 193 cases. “Several of those cases resulted in the deaths of the abducted. That indicates that the conflicts and crimes related to gambling debts are having repercussions outside the casinos. If those crimes are not timely repressed, they will bring negative trends to gaming,” he said. He also mentioned with concern the increasing number of illegal immigration cases.
In yesterday’s ceremony for the commencement of the new judicial year, Neto Valente addressed long-term issues that affect the system, namely the lack of proper facilities (for example, the First Instance Court continues to operate from a commercial building) and the decreasing usage of the Portuguese language in courts. On the sidelines, Nelo Valente criticized in particular the slowness of legal services, citing the case of former Prosecutor General Ho Chio Meng, who has been waiting many months for his indictment after he was arrested in February.
“There are two sides to this case. On the one side we see that the system works in the sense that even the rich and powerful can get arrested. However, on the other side, when you detain someone with a high-ranking position and someone appointed by the central government precisely because of how high they are in the hierarchy, then you see that the system is not working, as it allowed that person to get so far,” Neto Valente said, cited by TDM.