From 14 to 18 April 2025, the Sino-German Legal Cooperation Program of GIZ and the National Judges College jointly organized a one-week training course on German judicial methodology in civil law in Beijing. In the course, 151 Chinese judges from all over China learned the law application methods proved and tested in German legal training and legal practice. Under the guidance of Dr. Marco Haase, the head of the Sino-German Legal Cooperation Program, they analyzed legal disputes in accordance with the provisions of Chinese civil law using the methods of subsumption and relation techniques. For the first time, this course also included a case in the field of emissions trading.
In cooperation with the National Judges College, the Sino-German Legal Cooperation Program organizes several courses on judicial methodology a year. While the subsumption technique ensures that laws are applied to the respective case in a predictable and comprehensible manner, the relation technique supports judges in collecting evidence in an efficient manner and in accordance with the rule of law and utilizing it for the decision. The aim of these courses is therefore to ensure a uniform and predictable application of the law by the judiciary and thus, in addition to the efficiency of the Chinese courts, above all to improve legal certainty for citizens and the rule of law in judicial decisions. So far, the legal cooperation program has been able to teach these techniques to over 10,000 judges. As the case on trading in CO2 certificates shows, the course is also helping to strengthen rule of law standards in climate protection.