13th Meeting of the Council of ASEAN Chief Justices

The 13^th Meeting of the Council of ASEAN Chief Justices (CACJ), hosted by the Supreme Court of Thailand, took place on 22 July 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand, at the InterContinental Bangkok Hotel. The Supreme Court of Thailand also hosted a Welcome Reception for the delegates on 21 July 2026 and a Gala Dinner on 23 July 2026. In conjunction with the 13^th CACJ Meeting, the 4^th Standing Meeting of ASEAN Insolvency Judges and the respective Meetings of ASEAN Insolvency and Intellectual Property Judges and Practitioners were held on 21 July 2026.

The Honourable Chief Justice Adisak Tantiwong, President of the Supreme Court of Thailand, was elected as Chair of the CACJ at the opening of the 13^th CACJ Meeting. This year’s CACJ Meeting was the first meeting attended by the Honourable Afonso Carmona, Chief Justice of Timor-Leste, following his admission to the CACJ in February 2026.  

At the meeting, the CACJ engaged in discussions on a wide range of issues such as:

1. Training on consumer protection for ASEAN judiciaries, judiciary knowledge exchanges and training on key issues such as trafficking-in-persons and climate justice, the adoption of the Denpasar Judicial Well-Being Principles and establishing an ASEAN Judicial Fellows Programme.
2. Publishing the finalised draft of Volume I of the Memorandum of Guidance on Enforcement of Money Judgments within ASEAN (ASEAN MOG), and developing a second volume of the ASEAN MOG.
3. Publishing the finalised draft of the Simplified Protocol on Verification Procedure to Authenticate Court Orders within ASEAN and conducting a survey with the ASEAN judiciaries to ascertain their respective priorities in the area of court technology.
4. Developing the next ASEAN Judiciaries Roadmap for the deployment and use of technology, and revising the Governance Framework on the Use of AI for ASEAN Judiciaries.
5. The adoption of a roadmap to promote Therapeutic Justice (TJ) and TJ-related practices in ASEAN through regular exchange of knowledge and sharing of processes and practices, identifying common processes and best practices, enhancing the use of TJ and TJ-related practices through training, and developing shared communication protocols and procedures.
6. The Compendium of Videoconferencing Practices among ASEAN Member States and the continued engagement of the ASEAN+3 Judiciaries on their rules on videoconferencing hearings.
7. The engagement with the Australian Judiciary with a view to identifying and developing mutually beneficial judicial collaborative initiatives based on the Concept Note entitled “ASEAN–Australia Judicial Cooperation: Proposed Framework for Initial Dialogue” that was transmitted to the Australian Judiciary for its consideration.
8. The conduct of a symposium on the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Climate Change.
9. The continued work of the ASEAN-International Framework for Court Excellence Resource Networking in fostering a culture of and providing an avenue for sharing and collaborating to build competency in court excellence.
10. The sharing of judicial knowledge, comparative experiences and good practices on intellectual property-related matters, including digital piracy, technology-enabled infringement, and cross-border challenges in the enforcement of intellectual property rights.
11. The hosting of an online seminar on digital assets for ASEAN judges and the preparation of a compendium on common legal issues relating to digital assets across all ASEAN member states.

All Chief Justices and Heads of Delegations in attendance signed the Bangkok Declaration at the close of the meeting, maintaining the tradition of recording CACJ deliberations and decisions through publicly available declarations since 2015.