From 23 to 30 September 2023, the 15th German-Chinese Judges’ Seminar took place at the National Judges College (NJC) in Beijing. It was organized on the Chinese side by the National Judges College and on the German side by the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ) in cooperation with the Sino-German Legal Cooperation Programme.
This year’s traditional seminar for judges focused on the topic of “personal rights”. It was about the protection of personal rights under civil law, which in Germany are summarized under the term “absolute rights”. Property was not covered.
Keynote speeches by German and Chinese judges on individual topics provided the impetus for lively discussions. The participants talked about the protection of personality rights, the general personality rights, the personality rights in the field of media, commercialization of personality rights, the post-mortem personality rights, the protection of personal data in civil law, and the reform of the protection of personality rights. In the discussions, both the similarities and the differences between the two legal systems became clear.
Visits to the Smart Court Laboratory set up at the Supreme People’s Court and the Internet Court established in Beijing in 2018 gave the German delegation an insight into the extensive measures being taken to digitalize the Chinese judiciary. In contrast to this, the Beijing Court Museum presented China’s thousands of years of legal history, which has been quite eventful. At a calligraphy course organized for the participants by the National Judicial Academy, the German judges were able to practise their Chinese writing and familiarize themselves with Chinese culture.
The German delegation concluded the 15th German-Chinese Judges’ Seminar with a visit to the Great Wall on Friday.