Publish time: Thu Jul 26 00:00:00 CST 2007 Contributor:
The Beijing Arbitration Commission (the “BAC”) hosted a Symposium on the Non-governmental Construction of Arbitration Institutions in China. The symposium was commissioned by the director of the Department of Coordination of the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office; it was opened in the BAC’s international conference hall on the morning of July 24.
More than one hundred specialists in arbitration attended this symposium. These included: officials from the Department of Coordination of the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office; the Department of Professional and Technical Personnel Management of the Ministry of Personnel; the Law Committee of the National People’s Congress; the Judicial Reform Office of the Supreme People’s Court; the directors of more than forty arbitration institutions across the country; and scholars from the Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, Wuhan University, the China Foreign Affairs University, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A number of reporters from media outlets including CCTV-2, People’s Court Daily, Legal Daily, Chengdu Commercial News’ Press Center in Beijing, Jinghua News, China Daily, Beijing Weekly, Caijing Magazine, and ARB (www.china-arbitration.com) were present to cover the event.
The symposium covered two days, and consisted of several talks on the subject of arbitration as well as of discussion & summation. On July 23rd, Madame Wang Hongsong, Secretary General of BAC, presided over the opening sections of the symposium. Mr. Sun Jianli, the deputy director of the Ministry of Personnel’s Department of Professional and Technical Personnel Management, delivered a speech on the issue of reform of public institutions and on opinions of the reform of personnel regimes in public institutions that supply social services. Mr. Xiao Xun, ex-deputy director of the Civil Law Office of the National People’s Congress’s Law Committee, whose deep knowledge of historical and legislative background, allowed him to expatiate upon the significance of the landmark 1994 Arbitration Law. Mr. Lu Yunhua, the director of the Department of Coordination of the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office, was invited to give a keynote speech, confirming the significance of research on the non-governmental construction of arbitral institutes as well as of the meeting itself. His speech will be published later.
Deputy director Sun Jianli’s talk introduced the current situation and problems facing public institutions, such as vague orientation, weak supervision, post-hoc legislation and deficient coordinated reforms. Sun suggested the following as the goal of personnel regime reform in public institutions. That is to say, subject to the general requirements of cadres’ reform, personnel regime reform should, (a) emphasize a cadre employment and management system, and (b) set up scientific and legal-based governance to gather the talent necessary to push society forward. This governance should be different from that of a commercial enterprise, though there are some elements that are shared in common, including distinct rights and liabilities, and forceful supervision. Sun Jianli summed up that the reform of public institutions should be composed of pushing for reorganization of personnel regimes, setting up flexible employment and management systems, carrying out such reforms in a coordinated manner, and so on. Sun Jianli suggested that an arbitral institute should ascertain its own orientation and rapidly but stably promote development. His speech was echoed by the participants of the meeting and inspired heated discussion.
The next speaker, Mr. Xiao Xun, the ex-deputy director of the Civil Law Office of the National People’s Congress Law Committee, had personally participated in the formulation of the 1994 Arbitration Law. He spoke on the nature of arbitral institutes, as well as on personnel and financial issues against the historical background. He also analyzed the nature of the right to arbitration by sorting through the international conventions China had entered into and the laws and regulations China had enacted since the 1994 Arbitration Law was first passed.
After Mr. Xiao Xun’s and Mr. Sun Jianli’s talks, Mr. Ye Shiyu, the vice-Secretary General of the Chengdu Arbitration Commission (CAC), presided over the lectures of Professor Wang Yaxin and Dr. Chen Fuyong from the Tsinghua University, who discussed their analysis of questionnaires that had been sent to and were answered by various arbitration institutions. Professor Fan Yu from the Renmin University also commented on their report. Afterwards, Madam Wang Hongsong gave a talk on the implementation of increasingly broad reforms of the arbitration institutions’ non-governmental construction. After a group discussion, participants summed up their comments and suggestions on this topic.
(by Kong Yuan)