Hubei makes concentrated efforts to upgrade public legal services

The judicial administrative departments of Central China's Hubei province have taken multiple measures to further promote the high-quality development of its public legal services, such as innovating service content, channels and supply methods and accelerating the integration and improvement of various legal services, so as to bring more benefits to enterprises and the public.

Enhancing legal publicity thorough various forms  

In May 2022, Wuchang district of Wuhan city launched a legal publicity program called "Caravan", to make public legal services more accessible across the province and integrate the district's high-quality legal services and judicial administrative functions.

The Caravan program integrates six judicial administrative functions, namely, legal publicity, legal aid, mediation, lawyers, administrative reconsideration and notarization, with an "N". The "N" refers to relevant functional departments to provide "one-stop" tailor-made legal services for enterprises and the public in a convenient and effective manner.

For more than a year, more than 50 units have taken part in the program, and have distributed over 80,000 publicity materials and provided over 20,000 legal consultations, benefiting over 500,000 people.

Meanwhile, the province has continuously promoted the rule of law align with rural vitalization in rural areas where legal resources are relatively scarce, in a bid to facilitate the country's rural vitalization. 

Multiple measures have been taken to meet villagers increasing need for multi-layered and diversified public legal services, such as conducting themed activities on legal aid, notarization and judicial forensics, and encouraging local authorities to provide mobile public legal services for remote rural areas based on service entity platforms.

Improving public legal services both in quantity and quality

In recent years, the province's judicial administrative departments have established public legal service centers in 103 county-level regions, as well as in 1,255 towns and sub-districts, with village legal advisors equipped and WeChat service groups having been established.

For example, the province's Enshi city has set up one municipal public legal service center, 19 public legal service stations at the township level, 215 public legal service studios in villages and communities, as well as seven related service stations and studios in its industrial parks, commercial districts and scenic areas.

Among others, the justice department of Wuhan, the province's capital, has also collaborated with the city's bureau of human resources and social security and the department of veterans affairs to establish a legal service coordination mechanism to set up legal service stations to provide legal aid related to labor and personnel disputes mediation and veterans affairs at municipal and district levels, with 349 legal aid stations having been established.

According to statistics, since 2017, lawyers in Hubei have handled 166,000 legal aid cases, and offered 38,000 mediation services. They have also participated in 3,000 cases concerning urban management law enforcement and provide 274,000 free legal services for disadvantaged groups such as the elderly, women, minors, migrant workers and the disabled.

Promoting legal services through online platforms

Wuhan has organized over 1,500 village and community legal advisors to provide relevant legal services through the online community dispute resolution system, with more than 85,000 online legal consultation services provided in 2022, with a response rate of 100 percent.

Furthermore, the justice department of Huanggang city has launched a public legal service WeChat mini program that features multiple functions such as legal consultations and publicity and offers legal services, including legal aid, people's mediation, notarization, lawyer management, judicial forensics, administrative reconsideration and arbitration.