Nationwide legal aid campaign benefits people from all walks of life

Since the launch of a sweeping legal aid campaign by the Ministry of Justice in May, judicial administrative authorities and legal aid agencies across China have been playing an active role in helping enterprises resume operation, eliminating poverty, and providing the public with more convenient services.

Promoting work resumption

Dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, over 60 taxi drivers from a taxi company in Changning, a city in Central China's Hunan province, had collectively owed their employer up to 1.1 million yuan ($159,217) in management fees as of May. The default rendered the company in a severe financial distress and even affected the city's normal traffic operation to some degree.

Directed by the municipal government, the city's legal aid center stepped in, dispatching three lawyers to address the issue. After multiple rounds of negotiations organized by the lawyers, the two sides finally reached an agreement whereby the company would reduce its claim by three months' fees in settlement of the dispute.

Legal aid institutions in other places like Guangdong province and Beijing also took measures including temporarily lowering the threshold for applying for services and offering legal consultations to help small businesses get back on track.

Contributing to poverty alleviation

During the campaign, legal aid institutions across the country have been actively reaching out to disadvantaged groups including registered poor families and people with disabilities, aiming to solve their legal problems in home visits.

The judicial department of Northwest China's Qinghai province, for example, lowered its threshold for applying for legal aid, extending its services to all residents whose annual income is less than three times of the amount of the local subsistence allowance.

Meanwhile, Jilin and Liaoning, two northeastern provinces, have designated legal aid workers for all of their impoverished villages in order to provide them with one-on-one legal support.

Streamlining services

Legal aid institutions nationwide are also committed to streamlining their services during the campaign, aiming to bring more convenience to the public.

Shanghai, for instance, removed its jurisdictional barrier by allowing residents to apply for legal aid at any legal aid center whether or not the facility is in the same district as their residence.

The southwestern province of Yunnan, on the other hand, set up legal aid stations in all of its border towns and impoverished villages. In addition, by adopting a cloud-based public legal service platform, it realized online handling of legal aid cases, saving the public from multiple visits to legal aid centers, a common phenomenon in the past.

Apart from increasing legal aid supply, North China's Hebei province also took steps to ensure the quality of case handling. So far, it has organized dozens of lawyers to review 155 concluded criminal cases handled through legal aid.