Lawyer Álvaro RodriguesThe Chief Executive of Macau is currently visiting Portugal, with the aim of strengthening exchange and cooperation between Macau and Portugal, and “showcasing the success of Macau’s development over the past 20 years since its transfer,” writes Álvaro Rodrigues, a prominent lawyer and board member of the Macau’s barristers association (AAM), in an opinion piece published yesterday in Portugal’s Diário de Notícias.
He is the second local lawyer to comment on Ho’s visit in a major Portuguese daily, after Sérgio de Almeida Correia, in Público, earlier this week.
Unlike Correia, a prolific and outspoken writer and commentator on Macau legal, social, and political affairs, Rodrigues has remained low-profile. Outside the court walls, he has scarcely made public comment.
Now, in DN opinion pages, Rodrigues reflects on his experience living and working in Macau and notes that while he faces challenges in his daily work as an attorney, he recognizes “the effort made by Chinese judges to write their decisions in Portuguese language when Portuguese lawyers are involved.”
He acknowledges that the legal system in Macau is not perfect but argues against making broad generalizations about its flaws.
Rodrigues stresses the importance of maintaining a legal system based on the rule of law, and asserts that it is essential to have independent and impartial lawyers and judges who serve the law and justice. He argues that this “is indeed the case in Macau, where there is a continuity of the legal system and a commitment to upholding the principles of the Basic Law.”
While the Chinese language may have some predominance, he views this as “a natural reflection of the evolution of society.”
Rodrigues also notes that residents of Macau from foreign countries “continue to be welcomed and respected.”
He said that the principles underlying the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region are enshrined in the Basic Law, and that the transition from Portuguese to Chinese sovereignty in 1999 “was not simply a matter of changing flags.”
“While there are certainly challenges and imperfections” in the legal system in Macau, Rodrigues believes that it is vital “to approach these issues with nuance and a commitment to upholding the rule of law.”
Diário de Notícias, where Rodrigues published his piece yesterday, is 30%-owned by businessman-cum-politician Kevin Ho, a Macau member of the National People’s Congress; a circle of power in China that already produced two Chief Executives: Edmund Ho and Ho Iat Seng. PC
