Macao is situated in the west bank of the Pearl River estuary in the southern coast of mainland China. It has a population of around 500 thousand and an area of about 24Km2. It is a modern city of encounter between the eastern and western cultures.

On December 20, 1999, Macao’s sovereignty is restituted to the government of China and the Macao Special Administrative Region is thus established. At present, according to the Joint Declaration signed by the governments of China and Portugal on the question of Macao and the principles “One Country Two Systems”, “Macao governed by local people” and “high level of autonomy”, provided by the Basic Law of Macao, the Special Administrative Region enjoys administrative and legislative autonomies, independent judicial powers and final adjudication powers, with the exception of foreign affairs and defense that are of exclusive responsibilities of the Central Government. In order to safeguard independent judicial powers and final adjudication powers, the Court of Final Appeal and the Public Prosecutions Office with equivalent status are established in the judiciary of Macao.

According to the Basic Law of the Macao SAR, the Public Prosecutions Office is the only judicial institution that enjoys prosecutorial powers in the judicial system of Macao. It exercises independently prosecutorial powers as vested by law, free from any interference. The independence of the Public Prosecutions Office is manifested not only in the fact that its work is based on legality and objectivity but also in the fact that it obeys no orders of any authority or any individual but only what is provided by the law.

This implies that in the political system of Macao, the Public Prosecutions Office is independent from other institutions and is merely accountable to law. The Public Prosecutions Office has an equivalent status to that of the courts. The prosecutorial powers are independent from the adjudication powers of the courts, though they are closely inter-linked together.

The status of the Public Prosecutions Office determines its functions and powers as well as the way of exercising these powers as vested by law. These powers and functions include:

1. to represent the Macao SAR in the courts. When an administrative organ, the public treasury or municipality is involved in a lawsuit, the Public Prosecutions Office acts as its representative in the court. This implies that the Public Prosecutions Office is the government’s lawyer. At the request of the Chief Executive or the Legislative Assembly, the Public Prosecutions Office can also exercise its function in the ambit of legal consultancy.

2. to conduct criminal investigation and garantee criminal proceedings. To conduct investigation means the Public Prosecutions Office has to lead the criminal police in criminal investigation and monitor the legality of such investigative work. To garantee criminal proceedings means the Public Prosecutions Office has to promote the ongoing of the whole criminal proceedings. This includes to decide whether or not to institute prosecution against a suspect after investigation, to be present in the court to support prosecution after the case has been handed to the court and to monitor the legality of the trials and the execution of the judicial decision.

3. to monitor the application of law is also an important component of its work. This is manifested in the fact that the Public Prosecutions Office can inspect the criminal investigation of the police and verify whether judicial duties of the courts are carried out according to law. This is also ilustrated by the fact that the Public Prosecutions Office can inspect the execution of law by other public administrative institutions in order to garantee that all stipulations of law are observed in the process of its execution.

4. to safeguard public interests is also one of its important duties which is manifested in the following facts: In legal circumstances, protect all legitimate collective interests and public interests; to be legal representative of labour parties and their families; to participate in judicial proceedings concerning bankruptcy or insolvency and others involving public interests; to represent the incapable, the unknown and the absentee.

Owing to Macao’s limited geographical area and reduced number of population, the Public Prosecutions Office has resorted to an operation in “One single institution with three levels of representation” instead of creating three prosecutorial institutions with different rankings corresponding to the courts of three instances. By this method, prosecutors of three rankings, including Prosecutor General, Assistant Prosecutor General and Prosecutor, act as a representative of the Public Prosecutions Office in the courts of three instances to participate in judicial proceedings. This operation method of the Public Prosecutions Office of Macao greatly shows the characteristics of the dispatchment regime integrated in the Portuguese Republic’s prosecutorial system, i.e. a system characterised by a combined procedure of prosecutions and trials.

According to the “Magistrates Statute”, all the prosecutors are appointed by the Procurator-General among the qualified Macao permanent residents and are nominated by the Chief Executive.Their nomination is eternal and the removal requires specific reason and must follow the legal procedure.

After the handover, the Public Prosecutions Office of the Macao SAR had suffered a restructuring and during these two years, the Public Prosecutions Office has dealt with 25000 cases, including criminal, civil and administrative proceedings.Within those cases, 2173 cases were brought successfully to accusation and 2941 individuals were accused.Under the present social situation, the work of fighting crimes and protecting social order are gradually proceeding beyond the regional limitation.With the development of communication technology and the acceleration of economical globalization of the world, the interaction between different countries is getting intensive.In addition, the transnational organized crimes are found to present new characteristics and the tendency of growth.Macao as being a modernized city, with tourism and gambling as its major industries, it is inevitably affected by the transnational organized crimes.For this reason, the Macao Special Administration Region, including the Public Prosecutions Office are actively establishing judicial cooperation with other countries, as well as with nearby regions.

“The Basic Law of the Macao Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China”, when stipulating the judicial cooperation between Macao and other regions of China, including the Mainland China and the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, prescribes also that Macao, under the help and authorisation of the Central Government, can proceed with adequate disposition regarding the establishment of judicial cooperation with other countries.

According to the “Code of Criminal Procedure”, when Macao establishes judicial cooperation with other countries and regions, the international conventions and bilateral agreements applicable in Macao enjoy the priority.Until now, in the international aspect, amongst more than a hundred of international conventions in force in Macao, there are the conventions related to the fighting of drug crimes, crimes of endangering the safety of civil aircraft and taking of hostages which are conventions related to the fighting of transnational organized crimes and international terrorism.The execution of these conventions draws the attention of the Macao Government, as well as the judicial organs.With the cooperation and permission granted by the Central People’s Government, Macao is actively establishing a communication and cooperation with judicial organs and executing bodies of other countries in regard to the domains of criminal and judicial cooperation, in order to establish bilateral cooperation agreements.

In the absence of bilateral or multi-lateral agreements,all the activities related to the judicial cooperation held between the Macao judicial organs and other countries or regions, the general regulations prescribed by the “Code of Criminal Procedure” are applicable.According to these regulations, Macao judicial authorities can only reject the cooperation in certain situations prescribed expressly by the Law (those situations are: for example, the cooperation will influence the social order of Macao; violate the fundamental principles of the Law of Macao or put the safety of Macao in danger), or else, the request of cooperation can be put into execution in the premises of not violating the legal provisions of Macao.After the handover, the Public Prosecutions Office of the Macao SAR has dealt with nearly an average number of one hundred requests for cooperation proposed by other countries or regions within a year and a majority of these requests had already been executed in accordance with the Law.

With the existing close relationship between Macao, China and Hong Kong in regard to the economy, geographic situation and personnel interaction, various activities had been proceeded for the sake of fighting effectively the crimes committed within these places.One of them is the criminal and judicial cooperation held between the Macao Public Prosecutions Office and the Supreme Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China.This cooperation includes the reciprocal forwarding of judicial documents, reciprocal exchange of information and proof, as well as mutual dispatch of agents for investigation, all of which are of long-term cooperation.In addition, the Public Prosecutions Office of the Macao SAR has established a close relationship with the judicial and procuratorial organs, as well as with the criminal investigation departments of Mainland China and Hong Kong in regard to the interaction and cooperation.The Macao Special Administration Region is preparing to establish a deeper and more extensive cooperation channel with the Mainland China and Hong Kong through negotiations in the domains of criminal and judicial cooperation.

We appreciated very much the topic of this conference and deeply agree that in order to fight and prevent effectively transnational organized crimes, every country and region must establish communication and judicial cooperation of different kinds, such as investigation and collection of proof, exchange of information, recovery of proceeds of crime, transfer of fugitives etc.I do believe that this kind of cooperation will help to reduce the number of the transnational crimes, implement the prosperity and development of the society as well as yield positive and significant effects.

Thank you.