On the morning of December 9, 2015, President of the Italian Senate, H.E. Mr. Pietro Grasso, led a delegation to visit our Xueyuanlu campus. On behalf of our university, CUPL Council Chair, Prof. Shi Yajun, CUPL Vice President, Prof. Ma Huaide and their colleagues met with the delegates in a friendly atmosphere. During the visit, Mr. Pietro Grasso was accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Maria Fedele, Ambassador of Italy to China, H.E. Mr. Ettore Francesco Sequi and other delegates.
Shi Yajun extended a warm welcome to Mr. Grasso and his party, and especially thanked the National People's Congress (NPC) to include this trip in the very tight schedule of Mr. President of the Senate. He indicated that since 1990s, CUPL has dispatched nearly 50 young students to study law in Italy. Among them, 26 received their Juridical Studies Doctor (J.S.D.) degrees and returned to China. Twenty-two returnees have been teaching law or law related courses in over 10 key universities across the country. CUPL has established and operated a series of inter school exchange programs with the University of Bologna, Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Roma Tor Vergata and other Italian higher education institutions. Our university has actively collaborated with a group of institutes under the National Research Council (CNR) to promote the planned quadrilateral cooperation. He also took the chance to highlight the Research Centre on Romianlaw & Italian Law (Centro degli studi sul diritto romano e diritto Italiano) affiliated to our university, which has successfully held five international symposiums on “Roman law -Chinese Law and Codification of Civil Laws” since 1994. Last but far from the least, CUPL Professor Jiang Ping and Professor Fei Anling were recipients of The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic awarded by the Italian President in 2004 and 2005.
Mr. Grasso said that he was very pleased to come to CUPL. He was a law graduate himself and had been practicing law in the Italian judiciary since 1969. It was his great honor to have the opportunity to meet with our professors, experts and student representatives, to get a deeper mutual understanding and to communicate with them in person. Mr. Grasso mentioned that he is always willing to have face-to-face dialogues and debate ideas with young people, because they are the hope of the world. Both Italy and China are countries with a time-honored history, and have developed a solid friendship based on mutual respect. During his stay in China, many of his Chinese friends highly praised Italy for its contributions to world culture, art and history. Grasso also firmly held the belief that the Italian contribution to the studies of legal history will help the two countries find their common language.
After the meeting, Grasso delivered a speech on“the Origin of Western Law and the Codification of Chinese Laws”, and patiently answered questions raised by our audience. The activity was hosted by Prof. Ma Huaide, Vice President of CUPL. Over 200 people attentively listened to the speech including: teacher representatives from various schools of CUPL, students from our School of Juris Master, our School of Foreign Languages, our School of International Studies and our China-EU School of Law, as well as a group of overseas returnees who once studied in Italy and now call Beijing their home.
