Guizhou to improve legal aid for migrant workers

Southwest China's Guizhou province has decided to improve its legal aid service for migrant workers in six ways, according to a circular recently released by the province's judicial department. 

Extending coverage 

According to the circular, migrant workers and their children as well as rural left-behind children are the key targets of legal aid. They are allowed to apply for the service to solve a wide range of legal issues, from protection of workers' rights to land transfer. They are also exempted from the economic difficulty review if their legal aid applications are related to their remuneration, labor contracts and work-related injuries. 

Facilitating access 

The circular requires public legal service centers and legal aid institutions to continue prioritizing applications from migrant workers, and, in case of emergency, provide service before applicants complete the necessary formalities. Migrant workers can also turn to the province's public legal service hotline, 12348, at any time. 

Removing jurisdictional barrier 

According to the circular, when receiving legal aid applications over which they don't have jurisdiction, public legal service centers and legal aid institutions should hand over the applications to the institutions with adequate jurisdiction instead of turning applicants down and asking them to apply to other legal aid institutions on their own. 

Raising work quality 

The circular calls for enhancing job and professional ethics trainings for staff of legal aid institutions, lawyers and primary-level legal workers. It also demands the establishment and improvement of a whole-process supervision mechanism for legal aid cases involving migrant workers as well as systems for discussion of major and tricky cases, case reporting, and participation of legal aid staff in court trials. 

Improving work mechanism 

The circular calls for enhancing cross-agency cooperation in information collection, reporting and sharing. 

Ensuring subsidy distribution 

The circular requires timely and full distribution of subsidies for the handling of migrant worker-related legal aid cases by improving the distribution mechanism and streamlining the related workflow.