National security and insufficiency of courts facilities highlighted at Judiciary year opening

The importance of the preservation of national security as well as the insufficiency of local court facilities was highlighted yesterday during the opening ceremony of the new Judiciary year 2022/2023.

In several speeches, starting with the one from the Chief Executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng, the matters of national security were emphasized, with the CE calling for the need to defend the country as the only way to preserve the rule of law, which has characterized the governance and development of Macau.

“The defense of the State’s sovereignty, security, and development interests is the supreme principle of the ‘One country, two systems’ policy, and the stronger the ‘One country’, the clearer the advantages of the ‘two systems’ will be,” Ho said. 

He added, “In recent years, the international environment has been volatile and complex and the security situation in Macau has tended to deteriorate, which is why it is imperative to strengthen the system and [its] capacity to safeguard national security. To prevent and to stop the interference and sabotage by external forces and firmly safeguard the security and stability of the country and the MSAR (Macau Special Administrative Region) are joint responsibilities of the MSAR government and the judiciary institutions.”

The CE also noted that “Since Macau’s return to the motherland, judicial bodies have exercised judicial power independently, in strict accordance with the Macau Basic Law, upholding the rule of law with impartiality and justice, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of residents,” he said, noting that this fact helped to ensure the successful application of the principles of “One country, two systems” and “Macau governed by its people” with a high degree of autonomy.

Also in the same tone, the Prosecutor-General of the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), Ip Son Sang noted that one of the important demands for all the staff of the MP in their tasks is to have a “correct understanding of the ‘One country, two systems’ principle” as well as to “conscious defense of national security and ensuring the stable development of Macau,” he said, adding that the “Love for the motherland and Macau are core values ​​of Macau society. Only with respect for history and in-depth dissemination of feelings of love for the Motherland and Macau can the principle and connotation of ‘One country, two systems’ be properly understood.”

For Ip, facts prove that the stable and prosperous development of Macau since the handover “is inseparable from the successful implementation of the policy of ‘One country, two systems’, which is an integral concept, in which the ‘One country’ [principle] is the cornerstone of the ‘Two Systems’ principle, so only with the faithful fulfillment of the ‘One Country’ principle can one follow to the harmonious coexistence with the ‘two systems’.” 

The Prosecutor-General also highlighted that only with the safeguarding of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State, the firm implementation of the general concept of national security, and the dedication to the prevention and repression of any unlawful acts against the security of the State, can Macau guarantee its sustainable development.

Ip’s comments came in a sequence of what he called a “new era of ever-changing complex international environment and diverse external challenges,” making a specific reference to “recent provocative acts by the United States of America and some Western countries [aiming] to arbitrarily destroy the ‘One China’ principle.”

Doing an exhaustive statistics presentation, the president of the Court of Final Appeal (TUI), Sam Hou Fai, noted that, in general, the number of cases entering the courts has dropped for the sixth consecutive year, being the decrease when compared with last judiciary year of around 10.1%.

Both Sam and Ip made use of the figures to demonstrate that the judiciary system has been working well, with Sam adding that there has been a faster resolution for the majority of the cases as well as fewer appeals from the courts’ decisions.

Another of the topics addressed by Sam and later on by the president of the Macau Lawyers’ Association, Jorge Neto Valente, was related to the insufficiency and weaknesses of the court facilities, which have been recently highlighted by the trial involving the former junket company Suncity Group.

The president of the TUI noted that courts need more and better facilities to be able to undertake their important tasks, while Neto Valente proposed it toughen its stance saying, “It is not just about the appearance of the room – the smallness of the facilities – which could well have led the court to hold the trial in a space worthy of a public building with the appropriate size for the number of participants” that matters the most, but, the fact that such restrictions are ultimately causing a “limitation on the rights of the defense and the defendants, and that is not acceptable,” he remarked.

For Neto Valente, besides the improvements in the facilities, which he hopes will come soon, there is lacking, more importantly, “a broader debate on the reform of the courts and judiciary bodies,” he said, claiming that the justice in Macau “remains slow and delayed, with cases that have been dragging on for years, with trial hearings in civil cases scheduled for the last quarter of next year and, in criminal cases, appointments several months away.”

For Neto Valente, more important than the figures cited by Sam and Ip of the reduction of the number of new cases and other statistics, is the number of pending cases, namely in the Court of First Instance and Criminal Investigation Court, which continues to grow.

For the president of the lawyer’s association, more important than to display figures is to understand if, in reality, “we are doing things better than we did before.”

“Whoever is satisfied with what is done does not progress. It is not enough to state wishes for them to come true. We need qualified professionals, people with talent and courage, who discuss, criticize, and point out solutions, and not just applaud what has been done and keep imposing their opinion, silencing dissenting voices and despising the ideas of others,” he concluded.