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The public notary services in China have made remarkable progresses since it renewed in 1979. At present, there have set up 3,189 notary offices in China nationwide, with 18654 notaries, increased by 4.5 times and 15.2 times respectively compared with 1980. In 1999, 16,440,000 notarial matters were handled, increased by 112.4 times compared with 1980, among which 8,000,000 are domestic economic cases, 6,200,000 internal civil cases, and 2,240,000 related to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. 11 £¬991 illegal activities were stopped, with amount of more than 100,000,000, 000 involved. Notarized documents have been served to more than 180 countries and regions. It has helped the country to have 107£¬000£¬000 foreign currency back. The public notary services have played an outstanding role in economic construction, social life and foreign exchanges. In accordance with the Interim Regulation on Public Notary Services of the People¡¯s Republic of China issued by the State Council on April 13, 1982, the China¡¯s Public Notary system adopted the administrative model. However, under the market economic environment, it has demonstrated some unsuitable aspects. First, though notarization is regarded as an act to carry out public function, but it is not an administrative management activity, it does not meet the characters and rules of the notarial work if it operates in the administrative manner. Second, The legal status of the public notary offices is ambiguous. Under the administrative system, the public notary offices do not have its independent legal status and its corresponding property, therefore do not have the capability to bear independently the social and legal responsibilities, and do not have the mechanism for self-development and self-regulation. Third, it is difficult to form professional notaries. The notarial profession demands its members to possess rich legal knowledge and broad social experience. Under the administrative management system, it is difficult to fulfil due to the restriction on ranks and treatment, etc. Forth, It is hard to meet the demands of social development. Under the administrative management system, the public notary offices are set up corresponding with regional administrative levels and divisions, thus influenced by the administrative organizational setup and size. This causes the notary offices the difficulties to timely adjust structure and persons in accordance with the market economic development and social demand. Fifth, It is hard to run in conformity with the international practices. At moment, the notary offices in most of the countries do not take the administrative system, and the International Notary Organization does not accept the notary organizations with administrative management as its members. Also, countries like Russia, CIS counties, and East European countries, which formerly applied the administrative management system have already reformed theirs. In 1993, the Ministry of Justice started to reform the public notarial work in China. In 1994, at the 3rd Meeting of the National Notarial Work it was clearly announced that the public notary offices were going to transfer from administrative organs to institutional entities. In the past four more years, the public notarial work has achieved periodical progress. According to sample survey, there have been 19.3% notary offices that have changed from administrative organs to institutional organizations, and 26.9% have been operating in institutional management manner. A few have even tried new management forms. The reform of the notarial work first conforms the trend of the national organizational reform. Second, it fits the characters and rules of the development of the public notarial work. Third, it has explicitly clarified the legal status and responsibilities, and will strengthen the force of the notarial agencies, improve the quality of the profession, therefore, it can satisfy the demand resulting from the development of the market economy. Forth, it can ease State financial and personal management burden, and to increase the tax revenue for the State. On July 31, the State Council approved the Plan of Strengthening the Reform on the Public Notarial Work, which was submitted by the Ministry of Justice. This is an another important move of reform introduced by the Ministry of Justice after its reform of the lawyers¡¯ work. It is the exact act by the Ministry of Justice to take true steps to realize the rule of law strategy, and to implement the Decisions on Certain Issues related to the Establishment of Socialist Market Economy by the Central Communist Party Committee, Decisions on Certain Important Issues Concerning the Reform and Development of the State Enterprises by the Central Communist Party Committee and Notice on Cleaning and Reorganizing the Social Intermediary Organizations that Authenticate Economic Affairs. Opinions concerning the implementation of the said Plan will be publicized by the Ministry of Justice, and will be put into practice together with the Plan. The Plan is the document of guiding principle. It has stated the general directive ideology and objectives for the reform of the public notarial work. It has specified the measures and steps to establish the public notarial offices fitting into the socialist market economy, to form a profession with high quality, to regulate and improve internal operating mechanism within notary offices, to build a management system with Chinese characteristics, to reform and optimize ways and measures of the notarial work, to emphasis the effectiveness of the notarization, and to play its full roles. The major points of the reform in the public notarial work are as follows: 1. To speed up the reform. The current notary offices of administrative management shall be changed to the institutional ones as soon as possible. At the same time, to encourage the trial of new organizational forms. This year, no notary offices with administrative system will be approved to set up, though the fundamental characters of the offices will not be changed after the reform. Its basis nature that notary agencies are of the State legal authenticating bodies, the status that public notaries according to the laws enforce the power of legal certification of the State, and the legality of the notarized document, will remain the same. About 80% of the current notary offices in China are of administrative system. In many areas, especially in the economically backward areas, this system has its great advantages. In the course of restructuring of the governmental organizations and institutions, the Ministry of Justice voluntarily suggested that the administrative authorized size in the notary offices be changed to institutional organizational arrangement, which a few people within the system could not understand. To undertake the reform will meet with some obstacles. This reform has been initiated from the overall point of view, and has gained the great support from the State Council and other related Ministries, Committees and Offices. In order to actively push forward the reform, in the Meeting of Strengthening the Notarial Work Nationwide, the Ministry of Justice passed on the Plan of Strengthening the Reform of the Public Notarial Work, emphasizing on the unified understanding of the reform, unified principles and policy of the reform, unified measures and steps. The said Plan must be implemented. After the Reform Plan was introduced, the steps for the notary agencies to change to the institutional entities shall be fastened. Experiments with the cooperative system and partnership will also be deepened, particularly in the economically developed coastal areas and provincial capital cities, as requested by the Ministry of Justice. 2. To change examination and test system of the notaries, to strengthen the on-job training, and to build up a notarial profession with high quality. In order to found a bank of notaries with high quality, the examination of the national public notaries will be changed from the exam within the system to the one open to the society, and be carried out integrally by the Ministry of Justice. For the coming national notaries¡¯ examination in September, some of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have opened to the society. Among 13, 293 applicants, 3,578 are from notarial services system, the rest of about 10,000 are from other works of life. Meanwhile, the requirements for the application have been upgraded. In cities, only applicants with bachelor degree can apply. In order to encourage the persons of high intellect to enter into the notarial profession, the Plan also stipulates that those who meet the necessary requirements, after assessment, can also be approved to be notaries. For the purpose of advancing the quality of the practicing notaries, the Plan requires again that they shall receive 40 hours on-job training every year. 3. To standardize and improve the internal operating mechanism. While setting up legal entities¡¯ property and social security system, perfecting the fiscal management system, the notarial compensation system shall be established. It stipulates that the notarial compensation is of limited liability, with the property of the office as the maximum. The compensation will cover the economic losses to the parties directly caused by notarial organs and their staff in the process of performing their professional duties. In the past, there existed different opinions on notarial compensation matters. Some considered them of state compensation, while others thought them of civil compensation. The Plan also proposed that the notarial disciplinary system be established and improved to deal with seriously the notary agencies and notaries, who have violated laws, disciplines and regulations. The birth of the reform plan will be conducive for the notary agencies to become real constitutional legal body, which can independently conduct their business, bear liability, and carry out the role of notarization of the State following the rules of market and the operational mechanism of self-regulation. 4. To adopt the principle of overall restriction on the establishments of notary agencies, and their reasonable distribution. Notary agencies exercise the power of certification of the State. All of them are equal, and do not subject to each other. In order to maintain the unification, seriousness and authority of the notarization, there should be proper competition among notary organizations, but spontaneous disordered competition will not be allowed. The Plan has drawn on the experiences of internationally practised norms, posing that the Ministry of Justice will issue quota of the setup arrangement of the notarial agencies, to divide the jurisdiction of notarial services. There should be at least one notary office within each notarial jurisdiction. It will completely break out the traditional practice under which the setup of the notary offices was arranged corresponding to the regional administrative division. 5. To pursue notarized documents with certain fixed elements. To nullify the uniform formality of the notarial documents regarding cancellation of custody of evidence, field supervision and contracts/ agreements. The Ministry of Justice has clearly put forward the necessary elements that a notarized document shall cover so that the notarized documents meet the standards required by the Civil Procedure Law of the People¡¯s Republic of China. They are to be ¡°regarded as basis to identify facts of cases¡±. This kind of documents has been tried in some areas since 1999, which has gained good social results, appraised by all works of life. It has also been helpful to increase the quality and sense of liability of the notaries. And it will be popularized nationwide starting from January 1, 2001. |