Judicial administrators in Guangxi spare no effort in epidemic fight

As soon as COVID-19 broke out in late January, the judicial administration system of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region acted swiftly and decisively to shield this southern border region from the epidemic.

Keep public legal services available

Throughout the period of epidemic prevention and control, grassroots judicial stations across the region have not only guaranteed but strengthened accessibility of public legal services.

Legal workers would travel from village to village, community to community, to screen and address conflicts and disputes among residents. For example, Lu Zaoxian, head of a township-level judicial station under the city of Liuzhou, has resolved 12 disputes since the beginning of the epidemic.

Judicial stations across the capital city of Nanning have also been playing an active role to maintain social harmony. So far, local people's mediators have mediated nearly 30 disputes on family affairs, loan repayment and other matters.

Guangxi's judicial administrative system also took advantage of its physical and virtual public legal service platforms to enhance people's legal awareness during the epidemic.

Boost work resumption

With a growing number of enterprises resuming their operation as the epidemic wanes, the region's judicial administrators began to support them by offering various types of legal services.

To raise its work efficiency and avoid close contacts with clients, a public notary office in Nanning, for instance, opened a green channel for enterprises in need and changed its procedure by conducting preliminary review of the materials sent by clients by email. Only those who pass the review will be told to pick up their notary certificates on site. With this new online approach, the office has cut the total time on the procedure to around 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the city of Beihai, personnel of the local judicial bureau have visited one enterprise after another to provide them with legal consultations on labor issues, personnel management and preferential policies.

Strengthen community correction

While contributing to community-level epidemic prevention, Huang Fangfang, head of a judicial station in the city of Liuzhou, also kept an eye on the individuals serving community correction, a criminal penalty, in her jurisdiction during the epidemic.

"The community correction work is of particular importance during this special period of epidemic prevention," said Huang who often checked on those people through telephone or WeChat, a social messaging app, after the outbreak happened.

Officers at another judicial station in Nanning modified its admission procedure for those under community correction in response to the epidemic, making them more receptive to the measure. 

Encouraged by the officers, one person under community correction even voluntarily took part in epidemic prevention in his home village during Spring Festival.