On the morning of September 3, a meeting was convened by the Party Member’s Group of Haikou Maritime Court to study the spirit of the mobilization conference on creating a first-class business environment for Hainan Free Trade Port and the speech of Liu Cigui, secretary of the CPC Hainan provincial committee, with an aim to discuss and come up with some implementation opinions.

The meeting required that the Court should play its full part in maritime trial and find the pivot point where maritime justice could serve the construction of the free trade port and the creating of a first-class business environment, whereby strengths would gather to improve the business environment and to promote integrated innovation in the maritime trial system.

A series of implementation opinions were formed based on the situation of the Court:

First, recognizing the significance of creating a first-class business environment: the Court should further improve its political stance and shoulder its responsibilities, and it should fully recognize that the creating of a first-class business environment was an implementation of the earnest expectation of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and a critical element of the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port with high quality and high standard. The actual performance of maritime trial in serving the FTP must be set as the gauge for the work of the Court.

Second, strengthening the unified trial and research for the FTP-related cases: by categorizing the FTP-related maritime cases based on the association of the relevant laws, administrative regulations, rules and policies specially made for the free trade port, the Court should have such cases handled by professional trial teams in a unified approach, strengthen case tracking management, and summarize the trial experience, so as to form a complete, clear and systematic set of FTP maritime adjudication rules, and to provide useful reference for the law making of Hainan Free Trade Port.

Third, contributing to the building of an international shipping hub in the new western land-sea corridor: the Court should refer to the policy in relation to “Yangpu Port, China” as the port of registry, further study the legal issues that might arise during the implementation of the policy in such aspects as registration of bill of sales of vessels and bonded bunker fuel supply, and anticipate the legal risks due to the change of policy and give tips on risk control.

Forth, strengthening efforts in the trial of cases in relation to the protection of marine ecology: the Court should explore and support the establishment of non-profit funds dedicated to the protection of marine ecology, support eligible subjects to bring up public interest lawsuits for marine ecology protection, and build collaboration platform for public interest lawsuit for the protection of marine environment of the Beibu Gulf - Qiongzhou Strait. The Court should explore the application of punitive compensation in marine environment disputes, and expand the application of restorative justice in cases in relation to the protection of marine ecology.

Fifth, accelerating the building of two "one-stop" multiple dispute resolution and litigation service mechanism: the Court should continue to improve the building of the international case filing window, form a foreign-related litigation service team, and by applying information technology, provide more diversified judicial service and improve the capacity level of judicial service. Meanwhile, the Court should improve the working mechanism for foreign mediators, and deepen cooperation with arbitration and notary public institutes, so as to accelerate the construction of the "one-stop" dispute resolution platform. The Court should improve the procedures for the transition between litigation and mediation for tourism disputes, provide judicial service in earlier time, and participate in mediation of dispute before it resorted to litigation.

Sixth, making efforts to make maritime justice more transparent: the Court should improve the assessment and reporting mechanism for the performance index such as the “average trial period” and “trial process for single case”, so as to improve trial efficiency. Keeping in line with the judicial transparency assessment index, the Court should further extend the range and depth of judicial transparency, to ensure that litigation participants are able to exercise their litigation rights by law. The Court should also study and set trial index with the features of maritime trial, to expand the strengths of maritime trial.

Seventh, intensifying supervision on and support for sea-related administration organs: the Court should categorize the improper sea-related administrative acts found during the trial, analyze the causes, put forward solutions, and form final research reports or judicial opinions, helping administrative organs to improve their capabilities in making scientific public policies and providing public service.

Eighth, contributing to the building of the credit system for Hainan FTP: the Court should strengthen information sharing with the relevant FTP functional departments, encourage integrity, explore schemes that connected the payment periods for preservation guarantee or litigation fee to the subject’s credit rating, and increase punishment for those dishonest behaviors, so as to promote the building of a credit system for the free trade port.