On 5 September 2023, Shanghai hosted the 10th meeting of the SCO Ministers of Justice under the chairmanship of China. It was attended by the ministers of justice of all the member states and SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming. It was also the first meeting for Iran, which recently joined the organisation.
Chinese Minister of Justice He Rong opened the meeting. Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission Chen Wenqing, member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, read the greetings from President of China Xi Jinping. The opening ceremony was also attended by Head of the Shanghai City Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Chen Jining.
Zhang Ming expressed his sincere gratitude to the President of China for his greetings and noted that multilateral cooperation in jurisprudence and legal proceedings was an integral part of the SCO agenda and an important guarantee of deepening bilateral and multilateral relations between various countries and effective interaction between them. Today, the SCO continues to develop despite the new threats and challenges the region and the international community are facing, which fully reflects the viability of the principles of the “Shanghai Spirit” and the SCO’s great potential. It is important to use this historical opportunity to promote cooperation in jurisprudence and legal proceedings, thus achieving new substantive results and helping to bring cooperation within the SCO to a new level.
During the meeting, issues such as law building, legal services, forensic expertise, and access to legal information were discussed among other things. Following the meeting, a joint statement was signed.
The 11th meeting of the SCO Ministers of Justice will take place in Kazakhstan in 2024.