Why did the Dutch courts not accept the case of the ancestral temple of the ancestors? Experts explain

In 1995, Zhang Gongzu, who was stolen in Sanming, Fujian, sat in the body of a Buddha and rushed into the hands of Dutch collectors. After learning about the whereabouts of the Buddha sitting in the flesh, the villagers asked the collectors for recourse. The case may be one of the first cases in which Chinese cultural relics were successfully recovered through court rather than through diplomatic channels. But unfortunately, the Amsterdam District Court of the Netherlands issued a written ruling on the website on December 12, local time, saying that it was inadmissible for the villagers in Fujian, China, to recover the statue of the ancestral temple of the ancestors of the Dutch collector Fan Ovilim. According to Dutch media reports, the court held that the village committee was not a natural or legal person defined in the Dutch Civil Procedure Code and did not have the qualification for litigation. Therefore, the case was not accepted. In this regard, Professor Huo Zhengxin, deputy dean of the School of International Law at China University of Political Science and Law, has different views. Professor Huo Zhengxin told the Voice of China reporter that the Chinese lawyers' expert group had also realized this problem. Judging from the current laws and judicial practice in the Netherlands, the court usually refers to the law of the country where the plaintiff is located, that is, the law of China, when dealing with such cases. In China, the village committee is qualified as a litigant. Article 96 of the General Principles of the Civil Law stipulates that the village committee belongs to a special legal person. But unfortunately, the Dutch court did not make reference to the plaintiff's original country law. “Before we mentioned in the Chinese legal opinion of the Dutch courts, the first point is that the Chinese villagers’ committee is a legally established organization under the Chinese law. Under the Chinese legal framework, there is a litigation subject qualification; the second point is in the Dutch jurisprudence. There have also been some groundbreaking precedents for the qualifications of litigants. In addition, in the English courts' judgment on the Indian Hindu Shiva as the subject of litigation, the English courts applied the Indian law and supported the Indian lawsuit. Therefore, in the international cultural relics lawsuit, there are precedents for applying the laws of the original country, but unfortunately, the case in the Netherlands is still not applicable. It should be possible to appeal.