On the Morning of January 10, 2018, the Second Expert Legislative Consultation Meeting of China Law Society in 2018: the Expert Panel on (Draft) Law on International Criminal Judicial Assistance was held in Beijng. The Panel was presided over by Mr. Zhang Suhun, Vice Chairman of China Law Society, and attended by 15 prominent experts and scholars from various research institutions and universities in China, as well as by legislative and judicial officials from the Standing Committee of the National Peoples’ Congress, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. In his speech, Mr. Zhang Sunjun pointed out that the CPC Central Committee has attached great importance to international criminal judicial assistance. Especially after the Ninteenth Party Congress, with the deepening of the anti-corruption campaign, international criminal judicial assesstance has become increasingly important and it is urgent for China to the Law on International Criminal Judicial Assistance. Next, Mr. Zhang Ming, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice, introduced the legislative background of and main considerations in the (Draft) Law on International Criminal Judicial Assistance. Then the experts and scholars caried out in-depth discussion on the nature, scope, guiding ideology and other important issues of the draft law and put forward proposals on its further improvement. At the end of meeting, officials from the NPC Standing Committee, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Foreign Ministry and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate gave brief responses to the opinions put forward by the experts and scholars.

The meeting was jointly organized by the Research Deparment, the Criminal Law Research Committee, and the Criminal Procedure Law Research Committee of China Law Society and had been attached high importance to and given energetic support by the relevant departments of the Central Government. Among the experts and scholars invited to the meeting, three were from CASS Institute of Law and CASS Institute of International Law. They incoluded: Professor Chen Zexian, Executive Vice Chairman of the Criminal Law Research Committee of China Law Scoeity and former Director of CASS; Professor Liu Renwen, Vice Chairman of Criminology Research Committee of China Law Society and Head of Criminal Law Department of CASS Law Institute; and Dr. Jiao Xupeng, an associate research fellow of CASS Law Institute.