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LAw TRAININg
expert vieW
there are two law faculties in Macau: one at the university of Macau
(uM) and the other at the Macau university of science and technology
(MUST). Since its foundation in 1988, the UM’s Faculty of Law has
nurtured many local legal professionals. Most of Macau’s incumbent
judicial officers either graduated from the faculty or had enrolled in its
programmes. established in 2000, Must’s bachelor of law degree has
been widely criticised by the Lawyer’s Association for allegedly not
providing enough knowledge about the local legal system. Because of
that, Must graduates are obliged to complete the Lawyer’s Association
orientation course before being able to apply for an internship, unlike
their uM counterparts.
Language problems
LegAL AID
Macau provides a legal aid
system which helps residents W
hen it he comes to human
resources, Macau has its fair
who are less financially able share of troubles, and the situation is no
to exercise their legal rights. different in the legal services sector.
Legal aid provides exemption
rui Cunha, founding senior partner
or postponement of all or part
at C&C Lawyers, one of Macau’s leading
of advance fees and court
law firms, says it is very hard to work
fees for residents who are less
with only local lawyers.
financially able, and appoints a
He says the problem goes beyond
legal representative for them at
no charge. All local residents,
quantity, and is mostly a matter of quality.
including temporary residents,
“We have a Law Faculty [at the
can apply for legal aid if they
university of Macau] that is still young.
meet certain legal requirements.
And even with this, a bachelor degree
doesn’t provide all it takes for someone
to meet the standard levels needed in
providing legal assistance. that takes
some years of practice”, Cunha adds.
the true issue is language, says veteran
lawyer Cunha, saying that Portuguese is
AuDITORS’ RegISTRATION
still widely used in judicial proceedings
Auditors and audit firms must apply for the professional license to the
which makes things harder for non-
Committee for the registry of Auditors and Accountants (CrAC). Only
Portuguese speaking law students.
those auditors and audit firms registered with and on the list organised
Cunha says: “Although all legislation
by the CrAC, are allowed to engage in the activities of the profession.
Only those are permitted to use the name or include in the company
is translated into Chinese, most of the
name the terms or expressions “Certified Public Accountant”, “Certified
doctrine and law concepts are only
Practising Accountants”, “Public Accountant”, “registered Auditor”,
accessible for those who understand
“registered Auditors & Associates”,”PA” or “CPA”, or terms and
Portuguese fully.”
expressions with similar meanings in Portuguese or Chinese.
some, including Public Prosecutor
Ho Chio Meng have said that the use of
Portuguese is the main reason why there
is a backlog of pending court cases.
But Cunha says: “We should stop the
debate on whether the problem is the
use of Portuguese,” says Cunha. the only
STATuTORy AuDIT
solution, he adds, is for local lawyers
Companies with supervisory
and courts to use both languages and
boards, in accordance with the
gradually shift to Chinese.
terms of applicable law, as well as
in fact, compared with the localisation
public enterprises, concessionary
of judges and public prosecutors, the
companies of public services, and
localisation of lawyers has developed
public institutes and foundations,
very slowly due to the government
are required to perform statutory
pushing for judicial localisation.
audits, except if special laws
According to the Lawyer´s Association,
provide to the contrary. Other in December 1998, there were 85
enterprises or entities may be registered lawyers and eight articled
required to perform statutory clerks, of which only 26 could speak
audits by resolution of the chief
Cantonese (and only five could write in
executive, if this is justified by
Chinese).
the size and social prominence of
there are more Chinese-speaking and
these entities.
bilingual lawyers now, but Portuguese
lawyers are still the majority.
March 2010
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