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Roundtable Meeting of Chief Justices and Ministers of Justice
Panel Presentations and DiscussionPanel discussants at the morning session of the Roundtable Meeting were Advisor to the Prime Minister Khalid Anwer of Pakistan, Chief Justice Andrew Li of Hong Kong, Chief Justice Andres Narvasa of the Philippines, and Minister of Law and Justice Prem Bahadur Singh of Nepal. Advisor to the Prime Minister Khalid Anwer of Pakistan raised a significant problem largely undiscussed in the morning presentations: the presence of corruption and graft as an impediment to economic development and prosperity, a growing problem in a number of the countries of the region. He related the problem of corruption and graft directly to a lack of transparency in legal and governmental processes, arbitrary official behavior, and unstructured governmental processes. Mr. Anwer mentioned new statutes adopted in Pakistan for increased accountability at the highest levels of government. Chief Justice Andrew Li of Hong Kong reaffirmed a theme of the morning session: that for private sector investment to be beneficial for economic growth, a sound legal infrastructure is needed to support such private sector investment. He identified laws and an institutional framework, and the quality and training of personnel to enforce such laws, as the two necessary elements in developing this legal infrastructure, terming them respectively the "words" and the "music" of a sound legal system. Chief Justice Li asked participants to imagine a chief executive officer of a large business, and what that individual's primary concerns for the common threads of a legal infrastructure would be before taking the decision to put capital at risk by making an investment. Chief Justice Li identified (1) a level playing field, both within the country and the specific economic sector, (2) a degree of certainty in the legal system, (3) a fair, efficient and transparent regulatory framework, (4) safeguards against abuses of various kinds including corruption and insiders dealing, and (5) effective, fair recourse against government decisions, through administrative tribunals and/or courts, as indispensable common threads of the legal infrastructure necessary to attract private capital. He also mentioned the growth in private investment in Hong Kong's infrastructure, often on a joint private/public basis, and described the regulation of that private investment in infrastructure, including specification and monitoring of maximum rates of return to private investors. He raised the growing issue in Hong Kong of legislative involvement in controlling rate and fare increases in infrastructure industries with privately-invested capital. Chief Justice Andres Narvasa of the Philippines pointed to the need for government attorneys and judges to have a considerably better understanding of economics, finance and banking and mentioned efforts underway to enhance economics training for Philippine judges. He raised as well the difficult issue of the role the judiciary plays in law reform. In most countries, he said, the judiciary has limited roles in drafting and enacting legislation, but where judiciaries are forced to strike down certain legislation or governmental action in the interest of constitutional compliance and control of abuse of discretion - especially where that legislation or action has been taken in furtherance of economic reform or liberalization - judges may be accused of overly "interventionist" or "obstructionist" behavior. Minister of Law and Justice Prem Bahadur Singh of Nepal discussed Nepal's democratization process and the desire for legal reform. He described improved judicial mechanisms, economic reform and the separation of government from the operation of industrial enterprises, privatization, attraction of foreign investment and pressing tasks in the enactment of economic legislation as key issues for Nepal and a number of other countries. He noted Nepal's anti-corruption laws, laws on the status of women, and arbitration law and stressed the desire of Nepalese legal officials and judges, like many others throughout the region, to enhance regional dialogue as well as to work with the Asian Development Bank and other lenders and donors in order to tackle the problem of lack of resources and manpower. The discussion which followed focused on the desire for enhanced and more frequent regional dialogue involving senior judges and ministers of law and justice. One participant called for strengthened work on common legal foundations to help eliminate uncertainties in legal systems, and urged work toward uniform commercial legislation in the region. Other participants referred to the need for a Roundtable for Economic Ministries and the need to foster the development of a common agency for the development of a regional uniform laws organization. There were also calls for a regional arbitral system to allow for better enforcement of arbitral awards and further progress to permit the multinational practice of lawyers. Other participants echoed the need for intensified and enhanced dialogue both among judges and among government attorneys, while indicating that harmonization of commercial legislation would be complicated by the complex economic, political, cultural and social diversities of the Asia-Pacific region and the need to examine and take into account relevant international legislation. A participant from the Pacific returned to the role of the judiciary in countries undergoing rapid economic reform or liberalization, commenting on the difficult position in which courts often find themselves. He urged caution in the notion that privatization was an appropriate reform measure for each economy in the region, pointing to the need for continued state involvement in basic services and industries in smaller Pacific states where sectoral expertise rests almost entirely in the public sector. He urged caution in drawing rigid boundaries and establishing inflexible formulae in this area. A Bank representative reviewed regional discussions of legal harmonization, reaffirmed the Bank's strong commitment to regional cooperation as one of its core priorities, described Bank efforts to explore harmonization of law within the region, and noted that the intensified and strengthened dialogue and communication on which participants seemed unanimously to agree might eventually lead toward more harmonization of law. There was also general agreement that certain substantive areas of commercial law like collateral security law required reform, and that human resources development within the legal and judicial systems was critical.
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