Ben Boer教授做客天津大学北洋法学沙龙

Prof. Ben Boer visits Beiyang Salon of Law in Tianjin University

On October 14, the “1000 Talents Program” Prof. Ben Boer was invited by Beiyang Salon of Law to give a lecture entitled “The Australian Legal System and Specialist Environmental Courts” in law school of Tianjin University. The lecture was divided into 4 parts: Australian political system and geographical and environmental issues; Australian legal system; Australian court system and judicial judgment; comparison between Chinese courts and Australian specialized environmental court.

Prof. Ben Boer introduced that most people live in six “big” cities on the east coast of Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Darwin. The commonwealth of Australia is a federal government with three levels, including a national government, six states and two regional governments and local governments. The principles of procedural fairness, judicial precedent and separation of powers are the basis of the Australian legal system. Common law system developed from Britain is the basis of Australian law, which is unlike the continental Europe, South America, China, Japan and other countries of the civil law system. In Australia, the Land and Environment Court is a specialized statutory high court with extensive jurisdiction over environmental, planning and land issues, the judges of which have equal status, title and priority as judges of the Supreme Court. At the same time, Prof. Ben Boer pointed out that the environmental courts in China faced challenges including the priority of ecological protection under the “new normal”, the application of harmonization procedures, the environmental damage assessment and judicial assessment, the role of scientific evidences and scientists and global environmental issues.