2014 Past Events

Competition Law in China

  • "Competition Law in China & Hong Kong"
    Hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Comptetition Law and Economics Network
    13 October 2014

    This seminar analysed and discussed the enforcement of competition law in China and Hong Kong, two distinct jurisdictions mandated by the ‘one country, two systems’ concept that underpins simultaneously national sovereignty and regional autonomy enjoyed by Hong Kong. As in most other legal domains, the competition law systems of Mainland China and Hong Kong are very different. The substantive law and enforcement mechanisms of these jurisdictions were outlined, and the major issues and challenges of the last six years of enforcement of the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law and the prospective enforcement regime and the challenges to be faced in Hong Kong were discussed. The seminar also considered the common factors shared by the two economies and highlighted the disparities between the enforcement systems including fundamental differences in adherence to the rule of law, and the objects, purposes and aims of the public agencies and their governments in their respective adoption of ostensibly pro-competition legal regimes.

    Presenters Professor Mark Williams is Professor of Law in University of Melbourne Law School and teaches competition law, Hong Kong company/commercial law, corporate social responsibility and People’s Republic of China (PRC) economic law. He has published in various leading law journals, including the Journal of Business Law, the Competition Review, the Antitrust Bulletin and the Competition Policy International.

    Dr Wendy Ng is a lecturer at Adelaide Law School at the University of Adelaide. Her primary research area is competition law, focusing on international and comparative competition law, law and development, and China. She recently completed her PhD, which examined the political economy of China’s Anti- Monopoly Law, at Melbourne Law School. Wendy also practised as a lawyer for several years in Melbourne and in New York, working mainly in the areas of competition law and corporate law.

  • Law Reform Challenges in Indonesia

    • "Indonesia's Presidential Election: Law Reform Challenges for the New Administration"
      Hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society
      8 October 2014

      The elections of 2014 are a critical juncture in Indonesia’s history. Fifteen years after the end of the authoritarian New Order, and after ten years of democratic rule under Yudhoyono, Indonesians must decide whether to consolidate the democratic reforms introduced after the fall of Soeharto, or dismantle them. This choice has polarised Indonesians and many feel confused by the events of this year. In this lecture, Dr Lubis looked at the increasingly divisive debate over democracy and Reformasi in Indonesia to assess to assess whether his country will move backward or forward after the new administration is sworn in on 20 October. He focused on human rights and other key areas of law reform that need attention, as well as the threats they face, to set out an agenda for getting Reformasi back on track.

      PresenterDr Todung Mulya Lubis is one of Indonesia’s leading human rights lawyers and most influential legal thinkers. He completed his undergraduate Law degree at the University of Indonesia (1974); his LLM at the University of California, Berkeley (1978); a second LLM at Harvard Law School (1988); and his JSD at the University of California, Berkeley (1990). He has been a senior Adjunct Member of the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia since 1990, where he was first appointed in 1975.

      From 1980-1983, he was Director of Indonesia’s famous dissident NGO, the Legal Aid Foundation, where he worked for many years. His influential scholarly book In Search of Human Rights: Legal-Political Dilemmas of Indonesia’s New Order 1966 – 1990, published in 1993, played an important role in defining the pro-democracy movement that toppled Soeharto in 1998 and guiding the democracy that was then established.

      Dr Lubis is also Founding and Senior Partner of a prominent law firm in Jakarta, Indonesia, and has acted as lead counsel in a number of major human rights cases, often on a pro bono basis. These include acting for the ‘Bali Nine’ and against President Soeharto. He has also held a series of senior government appointments. In 2014, he was appointed as Honorary Professor at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne.

    • Governance and Public Administration in Viet Nam

      • "From Self-assessment to Citizens’ Monitoring Governance and Public Administration in Viet Nam"
        Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
        12 September 2014

        The relationship between governments and citizens has shifted in most developing countries in the last decade; Vietnam is not an exception. In low-income countries, policy-makers generally rely on anecdotal evidence/narrative to assess the quality of its governance and public administration, but this information is often misleading and at best incomplete. In addition, in one-party regimes the majority of evaluations are in the form of internal self-assessments. However, the better fed and better educated citizens are, the better and more efficient administrative services they demand from governments. Nowadays, as Vietnam enters into the range of middle income countries, citizens increasingly demand a public administration system that promotes inclusive development and equity, participation in the decision-making processes of public policies, as well as in implementation and monitoring. In this seminar, Jairo Acuna-Alfaro presented two pioneer and innovative citizen-centric monitoring tools used Vietnam, which aim at reflecting citizens’ experiences with governance and public administration performance.

        The Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) is the largest time-series national governance and public administration performance monitoring tool in Vietnam exclusively based on citizens experiences. See www.papi.vn/en

        The ‘Justice Index: Assessment of Distributive Justice and Equality from a Citizen-based Survey in 2012’ is a new quantitative tool designed to help convey ordinary citizens’ opinions and assessment of the performance of state institutions in ensuring justice and fundamental rights in practice. See www.chisocongly.vn/en

        Presenter Jairo Acuna-Alfaro is a Policy Advisor in Public Administration Reform an Anti-Corruption, UNDP Vietnam and has worked in public administration reform and anti-corruption since October 2007. He has helped develop several policies regarding national public sector and civil service reform. In particular, he has pioneered new alternatives to measure corruption, and public administrative performance. Mr. Acuña is the lead architect of a pioneering effort to measure governance and public administration performance from citizens’ experiences entitled ‘The Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI)’. In addition, Mr. Acuña is the editor of a series of policy discussion papers on public administration reform and anti-corruption at UNDP Viet Nam, engaging leading Asian experts on these issues. Mr. Acuña has degrees from Oxford University (DPhil cand and Master of Letters), University of Essex, (MA in Political Economy), and Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica (MSc in International Relations).

        Mr Jairo Acuna-Alfaro

      • Marching to Civil Constitutionalism

        • "Marching to Civil Constitutionalism with Flowers: Has the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan Changed the Landscape of Constitutionalism and its Significance to Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland?"
          Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
          9 September 2014

          Taiwanese students occupied the Congress for weeks in March 2014 over the legislative fast-track approval of a service trade agreement with China. Recently, there is also a call to occupy the Central in Hong Kong over the controversial rules for choosing the Administrator of the special region. Some have hailed mass movement, or civil disobedience, of this sort as the triumph of civil society, while some have lamented it as the death of the maturing democracy and the end of the rule of law.

          In this seminar, Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh examined these issues, including the prospects of representative democracy and the changing landscape of constitutionalism. He argued that the Sunflower Movement has demonstrated a model of marching towards civic constitutionalism, in that civil groups compete with their representative agents and the Court in shaping and defining the constitutional order.

          The underlying issue of the Sunflower Movement is their increasing engagement across the Taiwan Strait and what the long term holds for the younger generations. The transformation of constitutionalism, in light of the Sunflower Movement bears, has tremendous significance for Hong Kong, Chinese Mainland and beyond.

          Presenter Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh holds a distinguished University Chair at National Taiwan University, where he specialises in Environmental Law, Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. Professor Yeh has published in English and Chinese in leading journals and published collections, including both the Routledge and Oxford Handbooks of Comparative Constitutional Law. Professor Yeh has held invited positions in leading international law schools including Columbia, Toronto, Harvard and leading Chinese schools in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Professor Yeh has had considerable practical experience in government, as Minister without Portfolio (2002 – 2004); Executive Director of the National Council for Sustainable Development (2002 - 2006) and the Council for Organic Reform; and Secretary-General of the National Assembly that approved the constitutional revision proposals by Legislative Yuan (2005). He has received the Award of Excellence in Research from the National Science Council.

          Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh

        • Constitutionalism in Asia

          • Keynote Public Lecture: "Constitutionalism in Asia or Asian Constitutionalism" and Book Launch: "Constitutionalism in Asia: Cases and Materials"
            Hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies
            4 September 2014

            Constitutionalism in Asia: Cases and Materials critically examines the study of constitutional orders in Asia, highlighting their histories, colonial influences and cultural particularities. Each section is framed by an introductory essay setting out particular constitutional issues and succinctly highlighting relevant critical perspectives. The approach is one of ‘challenge and response’, where questions of constitutional importance, such as constitution-making, free speech and judicial review, to take three examples, are raised. The reader is then offered specifically selected readings, of both primary and secondary materials. The publication includes materials from: China, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, the 10 ASEAN states, Timor-Leste, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

            Professor Cheryl Saunders AO describes this publication as ‘the most ambitious, rigorous and stimulating casebook on Asian legal systems to date’.

            PresentersProfessor Jiunn-rong Yeh holds a distinguished University Chair at National Taiwan University, where he specialises in Environmental Law, Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. Professor Yeh has published in English and Chinese in leading journals and published collections, including both the Routledge and Oxford Handbooks of Comparative Constitutional Law. Professor Yeh has held invited positions in leading international law schools including Columbia, Toronto, Harvard and leading Chinese schools in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Professor Yeh has had considerable practical experience in government, as Minister without Portfolio (2002 – 2004); Executive Director of the National Council for Sustainable Development (2002 - 2006) and the Council for Organic Reform; and Secretary-General of the National Assembly that approved the constitutional revision proposals by Legislative Yuan (2005). He has received the Award of Excellence in Research from the National Science Council.

            The Hon Justice Susan Kenny was appointed to the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1997 and the Federal Court of Australia in 1998. While a Federal Court judge, Justice Kenny has belonged to numerous academic and judicial education bodies and was until recently a part-time Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Her extra-curial writing includes papers on the emergence of Australian nationhood, consideration of judicial responsibility, the role of the judge in statutory interpretation, processes of law reform and the policy and practices of secrecy provisions.

            Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh

          • Alternative Dispute Resolution

            • "The Diversification and Formalisation of Alternative Dispute Resolution"
              Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
              1 September 2014

              In this presentation, Professor Fukui discussed Japan’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) reforms and the certification system for ADR service providers implemented by the Promotion of Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution Act (Act No. 151, 2004). Although more than 100 certified ADR service providers have been established, only a limited number of these ADR service providers are actually utilised. Professor Fukui examined the reasons that these services are not utilised to their full potential, and also proposes suggestions to rectify the situation.

              Presenter Professor Kota Fukui is a Professor of Law at the Graduate School of Law and Politics, Osaka University, Japan. He is also a Professor at the Center for Environmental Innovation Design for Sustainability. He graduated with an LL.D. from Kyushu University in 1998. Professor Fukui was a visiting Research Scholar at the Asian Law Centre, Melbourne Law School from 2009 to 2010. He specialises in the fields of Socio-legal Studies, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Legal Professional Studies.

              Professor Kota Fukui

              • "Transplanting Indigenous Legal Practices to a Transplanted System? An Archival Study of the Beijing Criminal Court in Early Republican China (1910s)"
                Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                28 August 2014

                No court can function without a judge, and how a judge rules on a case in a material way determines the quality of justice in a legal system. Judges in the criminal court of early Republican China (1910s), early on in the legal transplantation period, faced the practical challenge of lacking sufficient codes and guidelines to try cases. They tackled this challenge by resorting to the assimilation of imperial legal practices with the transplanted legal regime wherever possible. In this seminar, Professor Ng drew on 180 archived criminal judgments of Beijing local court from the 1910s, and discussed how these judges perceived their role and responsibilities in a transplanted legal system and justified such legal assimilation. This story informs our understanding on the limits and possibilities of legal transplant in early 20th-century Asian country

                Presenter Assistant Professor Michael Ng is Deputy Director of the Centre for Chinese Law and Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong, and author of Legal Transplantation in Early 20th Century China – Practicing Law in Republican Beijing (1910s-1930s) (Routledge, 2014). He specialises in Chinese legal history and his research has been published in international refereed journals such as theInternational Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge), Journal of Comparative Law (London), Journal of Legal History Studies (Taipei, Academia Sinica), Hong Kong Law Journal and Annals of GIS, among others. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong in 2012, he served in the legal and finance sectors for more than 15 years in mergers and acquisitions, direct investment and private equity practice.

                Assitant Professor Michael Ng

              • Real Estate Registration in Taiwan

                • "The System of Real Estate Registration in Taiwan"
                  Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                  26 August 2014

                  There are multiple influences on real estate registration in Taiwan, and currently a review of the Real Estate Registration Code is underway.

                  The system of real estate registration in Taiwan primarily adopts the ‘Registration Effectiveness System’ and the ‘Title Registration System’, which reflects a mixing of the German Title System and the Australian Torrens System. That said, Taiwan was governed by Japan for half a century and the law is also greatly influenced by Japan. For example, land and constructional improvements are differently conceived and treated. As a result, there are land registration books and constructional improvements registration books in Taiwan today. After the ‘Trust Code’ was enacted in 1996 and the ‘Civil Code’ and ‘Regulation of the Land Registration’ were amended in 2007-2010, ‘the Registration/Recordation Effective Against System’ was adopted in some circumstances in Taiwan. Furthermore, there are some registration/recordation types influenced by American law. In addition, real estate registration issues also remain local. The Ministry of Interiors in Taiwan is now discussing ‘Real Estate Registration Code Draft’

                  In this seminar, Associate Professor Huang investigated these influences and explored how they might be balanced during the reform process.

                  Presenter Associate Professor Chien-Chang Huang was a visiting scholar at the Asian Law Centre, from 1 - 28 August 2014. He has a Bachelor of Laws Degree from National Taiwan University (NTU) and also holds a Ph.D. Degree from National Chung-Cheng University Law School in Taiwan. He currently teaches property law in the Department of Real Estate & Built Environment, College of Public Affairs, National Taipei University (NTPU) and was the former Convenor of the Law Group in the Department. He is also a Director of the Taiwan Property & Economic Law Institute and a Commissioner of the Consulting Committee of Taiwan Environmental & Land Law Journal. He is widely published, including works in the NTU Law Journal. He has received academic awards from NTPU over the last three years and has visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Peking University and Renmin University of China for short-term research. Professor Huang also completed the Summer School in Law and Economics held at the University of Chicago.

                  • "Legal Interpretation in Japan"
                    Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                    18 August 2014

                    The necessity of legal interpretation was first recognised during the bubble economy when a large number of immigrant workers, who could not speak Japanese, came to Japan in the latter half of the 1980s and the early 1990s. With an increase in the number of cases involving parties who could not speak Japanese, there was a breakdown in communication during court proceedings and difficulties during criminal investigations by the police. The government has sought to address this problem over the past two decades by establishing a system whereby court interpreters are appointed for non-Japanese speaking defendants or witnesses in criminal matters. Further, the government has introduced measures to assist interpreters with their jobs including, providing them with court documents such as the accused’s indictment, the opening statements of the legal representatives and the judge’s verdict at the time of sentencing.

                    There is still no public certification system or training programs for interpreters. This is problematic in terms of quality control as there is no way to detect and dismiss poorly performing interpreters. In 2009, Japan introduced the saibanin system, a quasi-jury system, whereby six lay judges work alongside judges to decide whether the defendant is guilty and assist in deciding the sentence. This new system has posed challenges for court interpreting because, whereas conventional trials emphasise documentary evidence, testimony is more important in trials under the saibanin system.

                    This places a greater onus on the interpreter to be accurate and there have been several cases that have been appealed on the basis of poor interpretation at the first instance.

                    Presenter Professor Makiko Mizuno, Kinjo Gakuin University, has worked as a professional court interpreter as well as training interpreters for more than twenty years before obtaining her Masters degree in International Relations at Ritsumeikan University, Japan. In 2004, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Society at Senri Kinran University, Osaka. In 2008 she was promoted to Professor at the College of Humanities at Kinjo Gakuin University, Nagoya. In this position Professor Mizuno teaches interpreting and translation theory and practice to both undergraduate and graduate students. She is also the Vice President for the Japan Association for Language and Law. Her research interests include linguistic analysis of court interpreting and community interpreting in general. Her current research focus is on the issue of quality control of court interpreting, the training of court interpreters and how this relates to end users. Her publications include Legal Interpreting (2004), Introduction to Community Interpreting (2008), Practices of Legal Interpreting (2010), as well as journal articles related to interpreting and forensic linguistics.

                    Professor Makiko Mizuno

                  • Post 9/11 Law and Justice

                    • "Post 9/11 Law and Justice: Images and Absences in the Killing of Osama bin Laden"
                      Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                      13 August 2014

                      What does the killing and burial of bin Laden tell us about the sites, sources, and nature of law’s authority in a post-9/11 world? If law is embodied, shaped by our conduct and by language as action (Margaret Davies 1999; James Boyd White 1990), then the law of these events is discernible, in part, through an analysis of Obama’s announcement on the killing of bin Laden. In his announcement, Obama avoided the term ‘law’ but repeatedly invoked ‘justice’. In this seminar, Dr Rajah drew on critical theory on language, and political myth, to explore the relationship between legitimacy, violence, an absent ‘law’, and an insistent ‘justice’

                      Presenter Dr Jothie Rajah is Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, Chicago. She is a graduate of the National University of Singapore and was awarded her PhD by Melbourne Law School, where she also received the 2010 Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis and the 2010 Harold Luntz Graduate Research Thesis Prize. Her publications include Authoritarian Rule of Law (Cambridge, 2012) and Sinister Translations: Law’s Authority in a Post-9/11 World (Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 2014). Her current project focuses on post-9/11 rule of law discourses.

                      Dr Jothie Rajah

                    • New Ordinace-based Strategy in Japan

                      • "Towards Zero Alcohol-related Traffic Fatalities and Injuries: An Overview and Analysis of a New Ordinace-based Strategy against Drink-driving in Japan"
                        Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                        4 August 2014

                        Since 2000, a rash of tragic fatal accidents triggered several revisions of the law, resulting in severe punishments for offenders. As a result, the death toll from drink-driving has dramatically decreased. However, to further reduce the number of deaths, new measures, instead of punishment, are essential to further reduce the rate of alcohol-related accidents and deaths. In this seminar, Associate Professor Ryota Kosai examined a new strategy in drink-driving countermeasures in Japan, focusing on deterrence rather than punishment.

                        Presenter Ryota Kosai, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Letters, Ehime University, Japan.

                        Associate Professor Ryota Kosai

                      • Neoliberal Penality Thesis in China

                        • "The Neoliberal Penality Thesis in China: When Western Theory Meets Chinese Reality"
                          Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                          16 June 2014

                          The neoliberal penality thesis links recent penal shifts toward punitiveness and managerialism to market liberalisation that has swept western societies since the 1980s. While this paradigm has been largely examined in the western context, less is known about how it may be applicable to the eastern context. In this seminar, Enshen Li explored the possible conceptual limitation of the neoliberal penality thesis for understanding modern penal practices in contemporary China, where economic reform has also significantly altered the State’s social landscape over the last several decades. Through an examination of the penal evolution in reform China, Enshen Li argued that punishment in China over the last thirty years has not increased in its severity, as has occurred in many western states. Rather, the growing need to maintain a harmonious society has enabled China’s penal practices to be more lenient and managerial in orientation, analogous to the development of actuarial justice in western states.

                          Presenter Enshen Li is a PhD candidate in criminology at the University of Queensland. He completed his SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) at La Trobe University in 2011. Before he commenced his doctoral research, he worked as a defense lawyer in Shanghai, China. Enshen Li’s research is in the area of China’s criminal justice system and administrative detention. One focus of his recent work is on penal development and policing strategies in China with the perspective of comparative criminology. Enshen Li has published a number of articles in both law and criminology journals, including Columbia Journal of Asian Law, UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal and Current Issues in Criminal Justice.

                          Mr Enshen Li

                        • Regulatory Pluralism in China

                          • "Regulatory Pluralism and Empowerment: Lessons from China about New Environmental Regulators"
                            Hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law
                            13 June 2014

                            Over the last decade, Chinese citizens and NGOs have started to take action against industrial pollution, pluralizing the regulatory landscape originally occupied by administrative agencies. Regulatory pluralism here has an authoritarian logic, occurring without the retreat of party-state control. Under such logic, the party-state both needs and fears new actors for their positive and negative roles in controlling risk and maintaining stability. Consequently, the regime’s relation to regulatory pluralism is ambivalent, shifting between support and restriction.

                            In this presentation, Professor van Rooij discussed the preconditions under which citizens have entered the Chinese environmental regulatory landscape, and looked in particular at how power imbalances shape environmental awareness and activism and how this affects citizens’ regulatory function. He concluded that, in a context of regulatory pluralism, regulation and empowerment mutually interact and that regulators ought to regulate in a way that is not disempowering to citizens.

                            Presenter Professor Benjamin van Rooij is the John S. and Marilyn Long Chair Professor of US-China Business and Law at the University of California. His research focuses on implementation of law in a comparative perspective. Since 2000, he has studied how lawmaking affects implementation, regulatory law enforcement and compliance, and rights invocation and legal empowerment. A central theme is how implementation of law can be improved in the context of emerging markets where weak enforcement and widespread violations of law create a vicious circle undermining compliance.

                            • "Vietnamese Legal Studies Graduate Student Workshop"
                              Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                              2 June 2014

                              This workshop brought together postgraduate students from Australia and New Zealand who are researching topics relating to Vietnamese legal studies. Students presented papers on topics specifically related to their postgraduate research. The workshop provided students with a supportive, collegial atmosphere in which to present their work and the opportunity to meet students with similar interests. Students benefited from the feedback of their peers and selected academic experts in the field, including Professor John Gillespie (Monash) and Professor Pip Nicholson (Melbourne).

                              Workshop Participants

                            • State Responses in Vietnam

                              • "State Responses to Constitutional Reform Proposals in Vietnam"
                                Hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies
                                28 May 2014

                                On 4 February 2013, former Minister of Justice of Vietnam, Nguyen Dinh Loc, presented a petition signed by 72 senior scholars to the Constitutional Amendment Committee, calling for fundamental and broad-ranging changes to Vietnam’s constitution. Now referred to as ‘Petition 72’, the changes proposed included free and democratic elections and curtailing the current constitutional mandate of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It also recommended reorienting the Constitution in a number of ways, including, among other things, constitutional recognition of human rights and the right to private ownership of land.

                                While debate about constitutional and legislative reform is not uncommon, in the life of independent Vietnam there has not been such a public and orchestrated call for change conducted both in Vietnamese and English. Significantly, the suggested changes come almost entirely from the elite, both in terms of being highly educated and holding prior office within the Party-State, although the prospects of changes to land law and reduction of the Party’s exclusive leadership role are not likely.

                                In this lecture, Dr Bui discussed why this activism was initiated and how the Party-State responded to it.

                                Presenter Dr Bui Ngoc Son is a Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. Dr Bui completed a doctorate at Hong Kong University focusing on Vietnamese constitutionalism. He has published several articles in established international peer reviewed journals in English. Dr Bui is one of a handful of leading Vietnamese scholars who has openly engaged with comparative and international discussions about socialist constitutional reform, including through blogs following the constitutional amendment consultation process. A new generation Vietnamese scholar, with experience as a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School and as a constitutional change ‘Blogger’, he is eminently suited to lead the research and discussion of Vietnamese constitutional change. Dr Bui Ngoc Son is currently Vietnam’s pre-eminent constitutional law scholar.

                              • Family Court Personnel

                                • "Family Court Personnel in Australia and Japan: A Comparative View"
                                  Hosted by the Asian Law Centre
                                  14 May 2014

                                  In Japan, each judge and court clerk is transferred every two to three years between the Supreme Court, High Court, District Court and Summary Court. Judges tend to start their career under the age of 30 and court clerks have wide range of roles depending on the department in which they work.

                                  In this seminar Judge Kida and Ms Ishihara explored the similarities and differences in the judicial systems of Australia and Japan, with a particular focus on Family Court procedures and the roles of court personnel.

                                  They discussed the judicial system in Japan, the Family Court of Japan, the Domestic Relations Division and the Juvenile Division.

                                  Presenters Judge Kaoto Kida, Juvenile Division, Yokohama Family Court of Japan and Ms Kaoru Ishihara, Court Clerk, Domestic Relations Division, Nagoya Family Court of Japan

                                  Ms Kaoru Ishihara Judge Kida

                                • China Common Law Study Program

                                  • "Oxford/NUS/MLS China Program"

                                    7 - 13 April 2014

                                    In April 2014, the Law Faculties of the University of Melbourne, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Oxford offered a program delivering lectures on the common law to four universities in China: Shanghai Jiaotong (Shanghai), Fudan (Shanghai), Tsinghua University (Beijing) and Peking University (Beijing).

                                    This was the first year that the program has been offered and administered by the ALC. The program is supported by Mr Allan Myers AO QC and Mrs Maria Myers AO.