Government and Policy

213 counties will receive free legal aid

By Zhang Yan and Wang Yan (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-02-09 07:48

Project 'promotes judicial fairness' in poor regions

BEIJING - Free legal aid for disadvantaged groups in 213 poverty-stricken central and western counties, currently without access to lawyers, will be provided this year in an effort to promote judicial fairness, a senior justice official said.

Sun Jianying, head of the legal aid department under the Ministry of Justice, said the ministry will send at least 213 lawyers and 150 college students as volunteers to selected counties in a government-sponsored program.

The government has earmarked 12 million yuan ($1.8 million) in a special fund to guarantee that the program runs smoothly, Sun said.

Ensuring each of the 213 counties has a lawyer will "benefit disadvantaged litigants, including the disabled, the elderly, minors and migrant workers," Sun told China Daily.

The selected counties are located mainly in Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces as well as autonomous regions such as Ningxia, Tibet and Xinjiang, she added.

The move is in line with the "One Plus One" Legal Aid Volunteer Project launched in 2009, which aims to send at least a lawyer and volunteer to each of the poor counties in 13 provinces and autonomous regions in central and western parts of China.

A total of 130 lawyers and 300 college students have so far participated in the project.

These volunteers handled a total of 3,182 legal aid cases in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 52 percent.

"China's vast western areas are facing a dire shortage of legal resources and there are 213 poverty-stricken counties with no lawyer providing any legal service," Sun said. "These counties are urgently in need of professional legal services."

In a sign of the country's uneven distribution of legal resources, only 5,000 out of the country's 200,000 lawyers work in underdeveloped central and western regions.

? Sun Jianying, head of the legal aid department under the Ministry of Justice

Sun stressed that the legal aid program will help "promote fairness and justice, which is related to the vital interests of local people as well as social harmony and stability".

Ma Lan, a lawyer at the Beijing-based Gaotong Law Firm, went to Shandan county, Gansu province, in July 2010.

As the only lawyer in the county, Ma said her goal was to "do as much as possible" and she did not "care about how big the case is".

"Most of the cases I handled were small, ranging from family and villagers' disputes, lost livestock, fake seeds or fertilizer to migrant workers' rights, and they usually didn't involve a huge amount of compensation," Ma told China Daily.

The cases, however, had to be handled with diligence as "600-yuan compensation could mean everything for a farmer although it may be nothing for a city dweller", she said.

Ma and her colleagues shared a simply equipped office with just one computer. But she said she was glad of the opportunity to volunteer as "lawyers should not only serve wealthy people".

Li Guifang, deputy head of the criminal defense committee under the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA), said the legal aid project helps protect the legitimate rights and interests of disadvantaged groups.

"However, it can't fundamentally solve the problem of the uneven distribution of legal resources in the country," he said.

He said economic development of less well-off areas is the key to bringing in more legal professionals.

Li called for more financial support from the government and society to expand the scale of the legal aid project and improve working and living conditions for volunteers.

China Daily

(China Daily 02/09/2011 page1)