MACAU SAR, CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: João Nuno Riquito, Bruno Almeida, Daniel de Senna Fernandes and Paulo Alves Teixeira, Riquito Advogados
• excess of formalism and unnecessary bureaucracy, both of which delay the trial of appeals; and • procedural deadlines are inadequate, in so far as some are too long and others too short. Bearing in mind such concerns, the Macau government set the following guidelines for the future reform of the Civil Procedure Code: • swiftness, through the adoption of measures such as the shortening of deadlines, simpli- fication of certain procedural formalities and removal of delaying mechanisms; • flexibility, by granting judges a broader range of powers to better guide the proceedings in accordance with its needs and those of the parties; • efficiency, by allocating human and technical resources in a more rational manner; • predominance of merit over form, by find- ing solutions and mechanisms that reduce the situations where pure procedural techni- calities hinder the issue of a decision on the merits of the cause; • modernisation, to adjust and model the judi- cial system to the current world; • strengthening of loyalty and transparency, so as to promote a loyal and transparent environment between judges, parties, and other people involved, such as by setting a reinforced duty to justify the absence or late arrival to court sessions or other procedural acts; and • strengthening of the parties’ rights and war- ranties through the introduction of provisions that directly strengthen them, such as in the cases when the defendants are not domiciled in the Macau SAR, as well as to take such rights and warranties into consideration when drafting provisions whose main goal is to tackle public interests (eg, when reducing the
frequency of situations where trial hearings require a panel of three judges, legislators shall, on the other hand, ensure that the evi - dence presented in the hearing must always be recorded). To address these shortcomings, several amend- ments to the CPC were laid down by the Macau government, several of which were inspired by the Portuguese 2013 CPC. Some of the most important changes on the table are highlighted below: • amendment of the general provision on the judge’s power to control the proceedings, expressly granting the judge the power to issue orders to simplify the proceedings and to procure the swift delivery of a judgment on the merits of the case within reasonable time; • provision for the summoning of defendants without domicile in Macau by any means accepted by the legal system of their jurisdic- tion, in particular through personal contact with lawyers/solicitors (should they be grant- ed due powers in their respective jurisdiction); • restriction of the possibility and effects of stay of proceedings upon agreement between the parties to a maximum of three months, with it no longer to constitute grounds for the adjournment of the trial hearing • creation of a legal mechanism to allow that the ruling of an interim injunction anticipates the judgement of the main proceedings, by virtue of its simplicity and/ or urgency, wheth- er said main proceedings are already pending or not; • provision of the possibility to reverse the burden to file the main claim proceedings from the interim injunction’s claimant to the defendant, in cases where (i) the judge presiding those interim proceedings is able to form a solid conviction on the merits of the
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