(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-30 22:24

BEIJING -- The Chinese mainland and Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) signed a pact here Tuesday to make judgments by each other's arbitration authorities mutually legal and enforceable.

Huang Songyou, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, signed the arrangement on reciprocal recognition and enforcement of arbitration judgment with Forinda da Rosa Silva Chan, Secretary for Administration and Justice of MSAR.

"This is another example of progress in the field of judicial cooperation between the two sides," Huang said. Economic relations between the mainland and Macao have been much closer thanks to the Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement signed in 2003.

There have been increasing business conflicts involved parties from both sides but no legal document covers judicial cooperation on arbitration, Huang said. "Such a pact is in urgent need," he said.

The two sides started to talk about the pact in September 2006. According to the agreement, the judgement made by the arbitration authorities in Macao is legal in the mainland and vice versa.

If a judgment made by the arbitration authority in Macao involves properties in the mainland, it will be enforced after the local court in the mainland accepts the application of enforcement and vice versa, the agreement said.

The agreement will be applied on all judgments made after December 20, 1999 when the MSAR was established.

The mainland and Macao have signed several judicial pacts, entrusting each other's courts to deliver court orders and collect evidences for civil and commercial cases and mutually recognizing and enforcing judgments in civil and commercial matters.

"We expect the pact to protect the legal interests and rights of people from both sides and help maintain the long-term peace and prosperity of Macao," Huang said. The pact will also lay the foundation for further judicial cooperation, he said. The mainland has already signed similar pacts with Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.