The People’s Court of Hengqin New Area, Zhuhai – also known as the Hengqin Court – has updated its new website to be trilingual. Chinese, Portuguese and English readers can now easily access the latest news of Hengqin with regards to judicial matters. The website also provides litigation services and live broadcasts of court trials.

The first trial white paper of the Hengqin Court, White Paper on Judgment over the Civil and Commercial Cases Involving Macao by the People’s Court of Hengqin New Area, Zhuhai (2014-2016, which was firstly launched in Chinese in April 2017, is now available in English and Portuguese on the website. Hengqin Court has also selected some verdict documents of Macau and foreign-related commercial cases and translated them into English and Portuguese. They can be found on the website under “Judicial Publicity”.

Hengqin Court accepted its first cases on 21 March 2014. Since the second half of that same year it has also taken on cases involving foreigners as well as citizens of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan in Zhuhai City. Between 2014 and 2016, Hengqin New Area Court accepted a total of 811 civil and commercial cases involving Macau. In 2017 alone the number grew to 682.

In particular, the number of the cases regarding disputes over the sale contracts for house purchases, motor vehicle traffic accident liability and divorce has been growing. It is inevitable that the number of civil and commercial cases involving Macau will continue to grow with the rapid development of Hengqin Free Trade Zone, the admittance of Macao’s single-brand vehicles into the Hengqin Island and the on-going construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

In October 2017, the Supreme Court of China Judicial Research Association and Hengqin Court jointly set up the China Judicial Research Association’s research base in Macau to jointly explore major issues concerning the judicial system, judicial theory and judicial practice in Macau.