On October 30, the second senior workshop for maritime English training for Haikou Maritime Court, which was jointly arranged by Dalian Maritime University and the Court, came to a close with success. Liu Shaobin, head of the Political Department, and a dozen of young judges, law clerks and court police with fairly good foreign language attainment attended the workshop. To better serve the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port, the training aimed at building an international trial team with good command of knowledge in shipping industry, foreign language and law, by improving the trainees’ abilities in three aspects.

First, improve the ability of assessment so as to keep pace with the new developments of the shipping industry of the Free Trade Port. As one of the goals for the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port, an institutional framework, which aims at enabling free trade and free investment, is expected to take shape by the year of 2025, and the research and drafting work for the legislation process was written in the report to the NPC Standing Committee in 2019. As a response, the workshop also included courses to introduce the innovative legislations in the shipping law system of Hainan FTP, especially the taxation system, shipping industry regulation system, international ship registration system, pilot policy on coastal carriage, ad hoc arbitration system, as well as other practices at home and abroad, helping trainees to broaden their minds and figure out the priority of work in the next step.

Second, improve the professional English ability to adapt to the new ground of opening up of the Free Trade Port at the highest level. To improve the foreign language ability of its international trial team, the Court has been encouraging the judges to keep learning English. This workshop also included special English courses in shipping and law. The various immersive learning activities, such as the study of English maritime judicial cases, English shipping terms, and navigation simulator onsite teaching, produced good effect.

Third, improve the ability in the application of legal knowledge to meet the new demand of the formulation of the unique legal system for the Free Trade Port. As the Civil Code will officially take effect soon and the Maritime Code is under amendment, the workshop also worked on various issues concerning the impact of the Civil Code on maritime trial, the major issues in the amendment of the Maritime Code, the issues concerning marine insurance contract dispute and the legal issues on compensation liability for ship-induced oil pollution, as well as the hot issues on the contract of carriage of goods by sea. These courses have helped the judges to follow the impact of the changing legal mechanisms on their judicial practice and hence improve their trial quality.

The workshop also arranged discussions amid the courses to ensure better understanding of the training content. Through these communications, theory study was connected to practice, trainees’ minds sparkled with new ideas and what they had learned were put into practical use.

Liu Shaobin made a closing speech. He first expressed gratitude to the School of Law of Dalian Maritime University for the efforts in this workshop, and he expected that the two parties would build a good collaboration and communication platform and work jointly to serve the construction of the Free Trade Port.

He also urged the trainees to put the knowledge into practical use by applying the study on the frontier academic research and hot issues in their judicial practice to deliver good outcomes.

At the end of the workshop, Xu Yan, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Law of Dalian Maritime University, awarded certificates of completion to the trainees, at which Liu Shaobin announced the end of the workshop.