On December 7-8, 2018, a three-member delegation, head by Professor Mo Jihong, visited the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of Russian Federation at the invitation of Professor Khabrieva Taliya Yarullovna, Director of the Institute, and attended the Eighth International Congress of Comparative Law in Moscow. The other two members of the delegation were Professor Li Honglei, the head of the Constitutional and Administrative Law Department of CASS Law Institute, and Professor Li Xia, an associate research fellow at the department.
The congress, jointly organized the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of Russian Federation and the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), was one of the activities held in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution of the Russian in 1993.
On December 7, the delegation attended a welcome ceremony held at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law. At the ceremony, Professor Mo discussed with Professor Khabrieva the further deepening of the cooperation between the two institutes. He and other member of the delegation also exchanged opinions on issues of mutual interest with other delegates to the congress, including those from France, Italy, Norway, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Vietnam.
The congress began on the morning of December 7. At the opening ceremony, presided over by Professor Khabrieva, Professor Klishas Andrey Alexandrovich, Chairman of the Committee on Legislation and State Counstruction of the Russian Parliament, Professor Helgesen Jan Erik, Chairman of the Science Council of the Venice Commission, Mr. Lyubimov Yuriy Sergeevich, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, Mr. Krotov Mikhail Valentinovich, plenipotentiary delegate from the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation, Mr. Zagainov Eugeniy Timofeevich, Director of the Legal Affairs Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and Mr. Voronin Yuri Viktorovic, the Chief Financial Officer of the Russian Federation, each gave a speech.
At the congress, Professor Mo gave a keynote speech entitled “the development and characteristics of the constitutional review system in China” in which he gave an introduction to the development process, the significance, the characteristics, and advantages of the constitutional review system, the direction and concrete plan for the further improvement of the system in China, as well as the basic situation of CASS Law Institute and CASS Institute of International Law and their foreign exchange and cooperation projects.
On the afternoon of December 7, Professor Mo and one his Russian colleagues jointly presided over the roundtable on “the comparative research in international administration of justice”, in which the participants exchanged views on such issues as the judicial system, procedure and ideas in different countries and international criminal judicial cooperation.
Professor Li Honglei and one of his Russian colleagues chaired another roundtable – “fighting corruption with rule-of-law methods”. At the roundtable, Professor Li Honglei gave a keynote speech entitled “forty years of construction of a law-based government in China: achievements and challenges” and Professor Li Xia gave a keynote speech entitled “the reform of the supervisory system in China: against the background of anti-corruption”. After the speeches, the three members of the delegation answered the questions raised by the audience relating to the legal framework of the construction of a clean and honest government in China and the political and judicial mechanisms for the fight against corruption.
On December 8, members of the delegation attended the roundtable on “the comparative method in criminal law and criminal procedure law”, at which they carried out in-depth discussions with their colleagues from Russia, France, Norway and other countries on such issues as the necessity of and problems in the application of the comparative law method in administrative law, criminal law, criminal procedure law and other public law fields, and technical issues relating to the application of comparative law methods.
During the roundtable, member of the delegation met with the two deputy directors of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law, Professor A. Ya. Kapustin and I.I. Kucherov, and discussed with them the prospect of future exchange and cooperation between the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of Russian Federation and the two CASS institutes.
