MACAU SAR, CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: João Nuno Riquito, Bruno Almeida, Bernice Kwok and Daniel de Senna Fernandes, Riquito Advogados
Riquito Advogados Suite 1104 AIA Tower 251A-301 Av. Comercial de Macau Macau SAR
Tel: +853 2838 9918 Fax: +853 2838 9919 Email: jnr@riquito.com Web: www.riquito.com
1. General 1.1 General Characteristics of the Legal System The Macau Special Administrative Region (“Macau SAR”) legal system is governed by civil law. Its judicial system is composed of the courts and the public prosecutor’s office. The courts exercise full judicial authority, with the Public Prosecutor’s Office as an independent judicial body whose main duties are to uphold the law, representing the Macau SAR (and other entities) in court, and conducting criminal inves- tigations. Judicial System The Macau SAR’s judicial system is based on an adversarial model. A court, however, can order evidence to be pro- duced that it deems relevant to the decision, but no court can take the initiative to resolve a dispute unless one of the parties requests it. The court may only consider the facts submitted to it by the parties (with the exception of those that are public and evident and those it becomes aware of while performing its duties and those
that are relevant to determining whether the par- ties are acting with fraudulent intent). Throughout the proceedings, the adversarial principle must be observed, which ensures that no decisions can be taken until the relevant par- ties are called to provide their views and evi- dence. Throughout the proceedings, each party will have the right to state their position in respect of any of the parties’ actions and evidence submitted to the court. There are, of course, exceptions to this principle, which are intended to ensure the effectiveness of the decision. An interim decision may be made in these situations and the party against whom the decision is taken will have the opportunity to submit its defence and evidence after the decision, which will then be reviewed by the court accordingly. The court operates in strict compliance with the principles of impartiality and objectivity, and its decisions are based solely only on the laws. The parties should be treated equally. The particu- lar procedure will depend on the type of action sought by each party. Civil Proceedings The initial stage of the proceedings is based on initial written submissions. The court will review
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