The Courthouse Library BC hosted a meeting with the delegates from Ningbo Law Academy on April 27, 2009 in the BC Supreme Court.

Johanne Blenkin, Executive Director of the Courthouse Library BC, provided a presentation on several aspects of the law history, current information, and other related topics to the 5 delegates.

Some issues and topics discussed in the meeting covered the following:
1. The BC law court does not have municipal law courts, but provincial and federal law courts. A provincial law court is built when the population of an area reaches certain level. A law court can have both criminal and civil cases.

2. The nature of a case: Canada's law court is open to general public to view a case in process, except in some cases, the judges will issue public disclosure to protect the privacy. In the case of a divorce, the divorce is at federal court while the division of property is at provincial court.

3. The procedure for a person to become a lawyer: a person must have a degree in law, with 3 year practice, passes an exam, gains more experience, and pass a provincial exam (each province offers different exams, so a lawyer in BC may not be able to practice in another province). The Canadian delegates also shared the procedure in China: a person must have a degree in law, with some years of practice, passes an entry and a national exam (which applies to lawyers and judges). The chance of passing the initial exam is about 10%, and the chance of passing the national exam is even smaller.

4. Representative of lawyers in a case: in both China and Canada, many people had lawyers representing them in a law case; gradually, more people go to the court to represent themselves. This makes the process take much longer than usual. In China, the government will actually support some families that are below certain income bracket and pay for their fees in a law case.

5. The difference between a case in China and Canada: in China, a case is normally judged by the same judge from the beginning to the end; in Canada, however, a case can be judged by several judges.

Both the delegates and the Courthouse Library exchanged a lot of information, and the meeting was concluded successfully.