The College held a unique reading seminar in Yungong (Beijing) law firm on the afternoon of 17 Oct, 2020. During four and a half hours of reporting and discussion, twenty students gave great presentations and discussions on the Chinese character of Law (by Wang Renbo), the Research on the Frontiers of Administrative Law (edited by Ma Huaide) and the Discretionary Justice (by Kenneth Culp Davis), eight experts and scholars of administrative law and jurisprudence from the University and legal practice industry made pertinent comments. The task of the reading club was arranged in mid-August and the students thoroughly studied the above bibliography in advance.

Doctorate and master’s candidates supervised by Prof. Xie Zhiyong from the College participated in the seminar, including Wang Menghan and seven other master’s students who are studying comparative law from the College, Liu Guo and four other doctorate students who are studying administrative law, Zhang Ning and four other master’s students who are studying health law from the School of Law. In addition, Assistant Professor Chen Tianhao from the School of Public Administration of Tsinghua University, A/Prof. Sun Haibo and Dr. Zhao Yingnan from the College, A/Prof. Wang Zhiyong from the School of Law, Director of Yungong Law Firm Dr. Wang Tao and Senior Partners of the Firm lawyer Sun Zhenhua and Luo Ruifang.

The reading seminar was divided into three sessions, hosted by Dr. Tang Anran, Dr. Lei Yuwei and Dr. Wang Xiaoshu respectively. Each session was composed of four links: the host, the student report, the student review and the teacher review.

Xie Zhiyong said that this was the forty-sixth reading seminar he had hosted. He suggested that the presentations should be delivered in an internalised way, with comments and discussions, and the discussions shall give priority to critical opinions in order to play the largest role in the study. Xie also advocated dialogue-based reading, encouraging students to link up previous knowledge and add their own comments, and to learn from teachers’ ways of thinking and mind-set. He said that multi-discipline, multi-level, multi-field and multi-dimensional are the four major characteristics of the reading seminar, which is in line with the College’s value orientation of promoting the exchange of law, culture and values between China and foreign countries, and it is also consistent with the College’s teaching philosophy of learning practical experience to complement the its own discipline construction.