13th meeting of SCO SC chief justices held in China

BEIJING: The 13th Meeting of Supreme Court Chief Justices from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states held here on Friday, as a prelude to the 18th meeting of the organisation's Heads of State Council to be held next month in Qingdao.

In a congratulatory letter to the meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he expects deepened judicial cooperation within the framework of SCO to fight crimes and resolve disputes more effectively. He noted that the SCO Supreme Court Chief Justices Meeting, as an important judicial cooperation mechanism of the organisation, has played an important role in strengthening the concept of member states rule-of-law construction and institutional exchanges and deepening pragmatic cooperation in various fields.

He hoped related parties will deepen judicial cooperation to more effectively combat crime, resolve dispute, create a sound legal environment to facilitate the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative and promote regional development.

It may be mentioned here that as emphasized in the joint statement on the results of the 12th Chief Justices Meeting held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in October 2017, cooperation between the supreme courts in the SCO member states is based on the principles of mutual trust, friendship, neighborliness, stability and mutual understanding, as well as of ensuring peace and security in the region.

Since it was founded in 2001, combating corruption and related transnational organised crimes such as money laundering has been a persistent theme of judicial cooperation among the SCO members. So far, all SCO member states are parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption of 2003, and China has effective bilateral agreements and extradition treaties with all other six SCO members, except India. This lays a solid institutional foundation for the judicial organs of the member states to cooperate under the UN Convention framework.