Tianfu Central Legal District： Building a Highland of First-class Legal Services

Along Tianfu Avenue, the central axis of Chengdu, all the way to the south, there are rows of tall buildings. Next to Tianfu Avenue, Tianfu Central Legal District, with Tianfu Central Business District as the main bearing place, was officially launched on February 5.

Last year, the Provincial Party Committee decided that the Political and Legal Committee of the Provincial Party Committee would take the lead in planning and constructing the Tianfu Central Legal District in Chengdu, Tianfu New District. This is the first modern legal gathering area promoted at the provincial level in China. At present, more than 20 institutions have settled in in advance, and many projects are being promoted.

Why should Sichuan build Tianfu Central Legal District? How to build?

Why build it?

Optimize the business environment ruled by law

On the day when Tianfu Central Legal District was put into operation, Beijing Tongshang (Chengdu) Law Firm signed a cooperation agreement as a representative of the legal service agency.

"Trading" is evaluated by the industry as one of the "red circle offices" of top law firms. "It was established in Beijing in 1992, and by 2000, we only set up branches in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Chengdu Branch is the first branch established by’ Trade’ 20 years later, and it values the future development prospects of Sichuan. " Nathan Chen, senior partner of the Beijing headquarters of the law firm, introduced.

"Supporting the construction of the Central Legal District in the Central Business District is of great significance for improving the level of public legal services and the rule of law, creating a good economic order and business environment, and promoting high-quality development." Cao Daixue, deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, said.

The staff responsible for attracting investment are deeply touched. "The economic center is a gathering place for economic resources, and it also needs the help of legal resources." According to the relevant person in charge of the Economic Bureau of Tianfu New District Headquarters, in the daily investment promotion work, some enterprises are very concerned about the legal environment and legal service supply capacity of the attracting places. "Every time we make a promotion, we will definitely take the rule of law business environment as an important display content."

Liu Zhicheng, director of the Department of Justice, said that Sichuan has basic conditions and urgent needs to build a central legal district.

"In recent years, Sichuan’s legal service industry has continued to develop, ranking first in the country and leading in the west. However, with the in-depth implementation of the "Belt and Road Initiative", the development of the western region, and the construction of the twin-city economic circle in Chengdu and Chongqing, there are shortcomings such as insufficient high-end industries in the Sichuan legal service industry. " Liu Zhicheng introduced that the construction of Tianfu Central Legal District will help to gather a group of branded and large-scale legal service institutions with benchmarking role in the whole country, and provide legal services for the internationalization of Sichuan and even the central and western regions in high-end service fields such as corporate business and financial securities.

Liu Zhicheng believes that as an important part of modern service industry, Sichuan legal service industry still has a lot of room for expansion and promotion. "The proportion of GDP in the legal service industry has exceeded 1% in Beijing and Shanghai, while Sichuan only accounts for 0.1%. The construction of Tianfu Central Legal District will open up space and provide a platform for the development of legal service industry in our province. "

How to build it?

Create a professional "rule of law ecosystem" in the whole chain

How to build Tianfu Central Legal District? The planning has a clear orientation and construction goal: to build a first-class legal service highland based in Sichuan, radiating to the west, affecting the whole country and facing the world.

The construction of "highland" cannot be separated from industrial support. The "Overall Implementation Plan for the Construction of Tianfu Central Legal District" led by the Political and Legal Committee of the Provincial Party Committee makes it clear that in terms of industrial planning, Tianfu Central Legal District will build a "rule of law ecosystem" of "platform-driven layer, core industry layer, related function layer and derivative supporting layer".

What is planned synchronously with the industrial layout is the spatial layout. Cao Daixue introduced that Tianfu Central Legal District will plan to form a spatial layout of "one heart, one belt and more points". "One heart" means the public legal service center; "One Belt" means the development belt of high-end legal service industry; "Multi-point" refers to a number of legal cultural communication nodes.

"After receiving the construction task, I immediately selected the legal service gathering areas of world-class cities such as the City of London and Manhattan, new york, and did a lot of empirical research. These legal service clusters show some common points, and in spatial form, there is a significant accompanying relationship with high-energy business districts; In terms of layout characteristics, it is relatively concentrated around the landmark landscape and along the rail transit. Therefore, the construction of Tianfu Central Legal District chooses Tianfu Central Business District as the main carrier and TOD as the center to build a high-end legal service industry development belt running through Tianfu Central Business District. " The above-mentioned person in charge of the Economic Bureau of Tianfu New District Headquarters introduced that in order to support the construction of Tianfu Central Legal District, Chengdu’s integrated design of Qingdao Road TOD site can be described as "finely crafted", and the surrounding industrial planning and supporting needs have been studied and demonstrated many times, and the requirements for the construction of the legal district that have been sorted out have been refined and improved.

"New District" construction, policy first. The reporter learned that the Justice Department has formulated the "Implementation Measures for Launching the Pilot Work of Law Firms Hiring Foreign Lawyers as Foreign Legal Advisers (Trial)", which will promote the exchange of Chinese and foreign lawyers and improve the level of foreign-related legal services in Sichuan. Tianfu New District will also give policy incentives to enterprises and talents who have settled in Tianfu Central Legal District from ten aspects, such as settlement incentives and lease subsidies, in order to attract high-end legal resources to gather in Tianfu Central Legal District.

How’s it going?

More than 20 institutions have settled in, and the siphon effect has begun to show.

On February 5, the comprehensive service center of Tianfu Central Legal District was opened simultaneously. This is the first carrier of Tianfu Central Legal District, and more than 20 institutions have been stationed in the first batch, including political and legal service window units, influential legal institutions such as lawyers, notaries, arbitrations, judicial expertise, market supervision, intellectual property rights, accounting and other legal institutions.

"This is one of the achievements of the current construction of Tianfu Central Legal District." According to the relevant person in charge of the comprehensive service center, the biggest feature of the center is to "only run one leg, only enter one door and only find one person" to achieve "one-stop" business handling.

The reporter learned from the Procuratorial Service Center of Tianfu Central Legal District that the center has set up windows for defense and agency reception, case acceptance and legal consultation, as well as an office area for intellectual property procuratorial classes and an enterprise service hall to perform some procuratorial functions of Sichuan Provincial People’s Procuratorate, Chengdu People’s Procuratorate and Tianfu New District People’s Procuratorate. "Here, through a window, the’ one-stop’ service of the three-level procuratorial organs in the province can be realized." The relevant person in charge of the provincial procuratorate introduced.

This layout makes the siphon effect of Tianfu Central Legal District appear. "Law firms need to deal with relevant legal institutions, which are relatively clustered and more convenient. In addition, institutions can promote each other and improve their business level in collaboration. " Nathan Chen said.

"The notarization accreditation center and the global digital legal notarization service platform we have set up here have been put into operation. The global digital notarization service platform can realize remote handling and can cooperate with foreign notaries and foreign legal institutions to handle notarization business through the network. " The relevant person in charge of the Sichuan Legal Notary Office said.

More planning is coming into reality. The provincial courts actively strive for the support of the Supreme People’s Court, and settle in the Chengdu District Court of Tianfu New District (Sichuan Free Trade Zone Court), the first and second courts of Chengdu railway transportation, the Chengdu Intellectual Property Court, the Chengdu Bankruptcy Court, the Chengdu Internet Court, the Chengdu Financial Court and the Giant Panda National Park Ecological Court in Tianfu Central Legal District. When conditions are ripe, the provincial courts and the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court will also settle in to form a judicial gathering area.

The Department of Justice has won 19 policies and projects from the Ministry of Justice, and 17 were approved in advance. The Ministry of Justice has clearly expressed its support for the policy of striving for the introduction of international arbitration institutions, and will support the employment of international arbitrators as arbitrators in existing arbitration institutions, which will boost Chengdu to become a regional international arbitration center.

In the future, Tianfu Central Legal District has a higher construction goal-by 2030, it will form a high-energy industrial system that comprehensively covers and seamlessly connects the international and domestic legal service needs, continuously improve the incubation mechanism of international legal enterprises and the training mode of international legal talents, continuously export international leading legal service solutions, and become a rule of law platform with international influence. (Reporter   Ren Hong   Lan nan)