Ⅰ Introduction

The legal aid system is an important part of the rule of law with Chinese characteristics. Since 1994 when the Ministry of Justice proposed to establish the legal aid system, the government has been actively honoring its obligation for legal aid and based on real conditions, making efforts to promote development of legal aid. Measures have been taken to improve mechanisms of relevant laws, regulations and rules, and policies, increase funding for legal aid, enhance team building of legal aid institutions, innovate ways of publicity and services, expand the scope of services, strengthen protection for special groups, and better the quality of services. All these have made a positive role for recognizing and protecting human rights, safeguarding legitimate rights and interests of those in need, and achieving fairness and justice.

The Third and Fourth Plenary Sessions of the 18th CPC Central Committee explicitly pointed out to improve the legal aid system. President Xi Jinping reiterated that the legal aid for citizens with financial difficulties should be enhanced, that while the scope of legal aid is being enlarged gradually, the work of legal aid should focus on the real need of economic and social development and the improvement of quality of legal aid services, and that efforts should be made to build mechanism of public legal service. In the State Council’s Work Report for 2015, it is stated that “the scope of legal aid is enlarged to cover not only people living on subsistence allowance but also people with low income”, and includes the improvement of the legal aid system in the part of improving people’s livelihood and social construction. This is good demonstration that the Chinese government will make greater efforts to push progress of legal aid.

Ⅱ National Policies

The 1996 Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Lawyers Law of the People's Republic of China established the position of legal aid in the national judicial system for the first time. The Legal Aid Regulations of the State Council in 2003 set up a basic framework and various principles for legal aid. Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China in 2012 further enhanced the position and role of legal aid. A dozen of laws including the Law of the People's Republic of China on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors and the Agriculture Law of the People's Republic of China provide specialized regulations on legal aid from perspectives of different social fields and groups.

The work of legal aid is the governmental responsibility. The Legal Aid Regulations stipulate that the people’s governments at or above county level shall take measures to promote the work of legal aid, provide financial support for legal aid and ensure that the legal aid cause makes progress correspondingly as the economy and the society develop. 

Sufficient funding for legal aid is a solid foundation, based on which the poor could get legal aid. At the same time, it also demonstrates that the government is carrying out its responsibility of providing legal aid. In recent years, both central and local financial authorities have been increasing support for the work of legal aid. In 2005, the central finance began to allocate a special funding for the handling of legal aid cases in poverty-stricken regions. In 2014, this special funding was increased to 300 million yuan RMB, and the accumulated funding in these years totaled 1.4 billion yuan RMB. In addition, beginning in 2009, the central finance earmarked 50 million yuan RMB RMB from the central lottery income for legal aid for special groups of people such as farmers and people with disabilities. The current funding is increased to 100 million yuan RMB, and a total of 600 million yuan RMB RMBhas been invested in this regard. At provincial level, special funds for legal aid have been set up in 23 provinces including Henan, Chongqing, and Jiangsu to promote a balanced development of the legal aid work. In 2014, the total financial allocation for legal aid across the country was 1.7 billion yuan RMB.

The state encourages the society to make donations for legal aid activities, and supports and encourages social groups, institutions and other organizations to tap their own resources to provide legal aid for citizens in need.

The Lawyers Law and the Legal Aid Regulations stipulate that lawyers shall honor their obligation of offering legal aid services according to law, provide qualified legal services, maintain the lawful rights of the legal aid recipients based on laws and accept supervision from the bar and judicial administration departments.

Citizens meeting the standard of economic difficulty can get legal aid services for matters falling within the scope of legal aid. The Legal Aid Regulations of the State Council have general provisions on the scope of legal aid in civil and administrative matters, which includes 1) state compensation; 2) social insurance or subsistence allowance; 3) pension or benefit payment; 4) parental support, child support, or alimony; 5) work payment; 6) civil rights and interests for Good Samaritan protection. Provincial governments may make additional regulations about the scope of legal aid matters, and many provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have incorporated compensation for traffic accidents and medical accidents and family cases into the scope. Suspects and defendants in criminal cases, victims in cases of public prosecution and voluntary prosecutors in cases of private prosecution can directly apply for legal aid or get their legal aid application referred by public security departments, procuratorates or courts if they can’t afford legal representation due to poverty. If the criminal suspect or the defendant is a minor, if he/she is blind, deaf or mute, if he/she is a mental patient who has not completely lost the ability of recognizing or controlling his/her own conduct, if he/she may be sentenced to life imprisonment or death penalty, if he/she has not entrusted any defendant, or if he/she is the respondent or defendant in a case of compulsory medical treatment and etc, the public security department, the people’s procuratorate, or the people’s court shall inform legal aid institutions to appoint a lawyer to provide defense for him.

The standard of economic difficulty for legal aid is made by the provincial people’s government. The supplementary rules on the scope of legal aid and the standard of economic difficulty should be adjusted as the economy and the society progress. Currently, the standard of economic difficulty is generally 1.5-2 times of the subsistence allowance. In some regions, the standard is lowered to the low-income level.

The legal aid institution won’t check its client’s financial status if it is informed by the public security department, the people’s procuratorate, or the people’s court to appoint a lawyer to provide defense for the client in a criminal case. In a civil case, the legal aid institution won’t check whether its client meets conditions for financial difficulty if it’s about a migrant worker applying legal aid for work payment or compensation for work injury. In addition, when soldiers or their dependents apply for legal aid, there won’t be financial checks if they meet special requirements.

When applying for legal aid, the applicant shall make the application to relevant legal aid institution and provide documents as required.

Legal aid institutions shall examine legal aid applications in time to see if they meet with the standard of economic difficulty and fall into the scope of legal aid matters and inform the applicants whether they can get legal aid or not. When the applicant cannot agree with a decision of denial, he or she can make a complaint to the supervisory body of the legal aid institution.

For clients of special groups such as seniors, people with disabilities, minors, women, migrant workers and laid-off workers, legal aid institutions shall consider their special needs while providing legal aid services.

Legal aid institutions shall handle legal aid affairs according to the procedure, direct and monitor the handling of legal aid cases, and pay subsistence for case handling in time.

Judicial departments and other relevant departments shall cooperate with legal aid providers, and reduce or exempt them from related fees when they are dealing with legal aid cases.

Legal aid institutions shall conduct distance cooperation, assisting each other in the checking of application materials, or in investigation and taking of evidence of a case.

Any law firms or lawyers, who refuse to honor their obligation of providing legal aid without justifiable reason, will be warned, ordered to correct their behavior or punished accordingly by judicial administration departments.

Ⅲ Legal Aid Service Providers

Government-run legal aid institutions 

Funded by the government, these institutions accept and examine legal aid applications, and appoint lawyers for qualified citizens and parities or arrange legal aid workers to provide legal aid services such as representation, defense and advice according to Legal Aid Regulations. In order to make it easier for citizens to get access to legal aid, government-run legal aid institutions have set up over 60,000 work stations of legal aid relying on judicial stations (grassroots judicial administrative organs at township or street level), social groups, colleges and universities, and detention centers.

The major force of legal aid services are more than 270,000 practicing lawyers, about 70,000 grassroots legal service workers and over 10,000 legal aid staff across China.

Social Groups

There are specialized right-protection organizations under labor unions, communist youth leagues, women federations, committees for aging, and disabled persons’ federations at all levels, which provide legal aid services for targeted groups. Government-run legal aid institutions have set up legal aid work stations in some social groups and these stations provide legal aid advice and accept applications for legal aid.

Public Interest Groups

Some institutions run by law schools or some non-governmental and non-business organizations working for the public interest such as the Legal Aid Center of Wuhan University, Beijing Children’s Legal Aid and Research Center, Beijing Yilian Legal Aid and Research Center of Labor, and Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers’ Legal Aid and Research Center, provide legal aid services for the public in forms of advice and representation.

Pro bono Legal Services

Advocated by lawyers associations, many lawyers and law firms are exploring a socialized, professionalized and specialized mode of legal service via pro bono legal service institutions (such as migrant workers legal aid agencies) and pro bono legal service centers, and conduct multiple pro bono services through training, legal publicity, and charity donation. In the past few years, lawyers and law firms in China have kept the record of providing free advice for more than 1 million people and free representation and defense for 100,000 plus cases each year.

Legal Aid Volunteers

There are over 80,000 registered legal aid volunteers across China. They provide legal aid services such as publicity, advice and representation.

Ⅳ Services of Legal Aid 

Legal aid institutions mainly provide the following legal aid services: litigating services such as criminal defense and civil/administrative representation, non-litigating services such as advice, writing legal documents on behalf of clients, and mediation, as well as legal education for the public.

In 2014, legal aid institutions across the country received visits, letters and calls from nearly 6.8 million people, and handled 1.24 million legal aid cases including 240,000 plus criminal ones and 990,000 civil ones. Almost 1.39 million clients got legal aid in those cases.

In recent years, ways of legal aid services have been innovated. Many convenient measures are used to facilitate people’s access to legal aid. For instance, clients can make appointment for legal aid service. Legal aid institutions can provide doorstep service, legal aid service at non-working hours, online service, or mobile service. In some places, new technological tools such as WeChat (a mobile text and voice messaging communication service) and microblogging are being used to provide information on legal education and legal aid advice for the public. In order to meet needs of the national judicial reform, such practice as duty lawyers is being piloted in detention centers and courts in some places.

Ⅴ Administration of Legal Aid

The Legal Aid Regulations gives the judicial administration departments the mandate to supervise and administrate the work of legal aid. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for supervision and administration of national legal aid work. Almost each judicial administration department at the provincial level has set up an administration agency for legal aid, defining its responsibility to supervise the work of legal aid. The basic administration system for legal aid work has been established.

Legal aid administration agencies under the judicial administration departments are seriously fulfilling their obligations of monitoring the work of legal aid, and are improving their administration of legal aid constantly. The Ministry of Justice issued the Regulations on the Procedure of Handling Legal Aid Cases and other rules and normative documents to improve the procedure and service standards for accepting, examining, appointing and handling legal aid cases. Each province has perfected standards for economic difficulty, the scope of supplementary items of legal aid and allowance standards for case handling. Local judicial administration departments monitor each chain of legal aid, enhancing quality management for legal aid cases, ensure legal aid institutions and staff could perform their duties according to law, urge lawyers and grassroots legal service workers to perform their obligations of legal aid consciously, support social organizations to provide legal aid in line with their capacities, and increase supervision and administration of social organizations and volunteers that participate in the work of legal aid to regulate legal aid services.

Ⅵ Future Prospects

In the past two decades, with comprehensive promotion of rule of law, the legal aid cause in China has made great achievements. However, just like in any other country, it is also faced with many difficulties and challenges such as a great demand for legal aid as a result of a large population in need, insufficient legal aid funding and human resources as well as regional imbalance, and off-standard legal aid services. In particular, the reform of judicial system has put forward stricter requirements for how to implement the government’s responsibility for legal aid and promote the development of legal aid in a comprehensive manner.

The legal aid cause in China is enjoying favorable opportunities of development. Under the new situation and faced with new tasks, Minister Wu Aiying made instructions that the legal aid system should be improved, the scope expanded, the quality bettered, the financial guarantee improved, and legislation for legal aid promoted. In the future, the Ministry of Justice will focus on the requirements for forwarding the modernization of national governance system and capacity, and based on economic and social conditions and needs of people with financial difficulties and special groups, actively participate in activities of deepening the reform of the judicial system, and continuously improve the legal aid system. Looking into the future, we have each and every reason to believe that the legal aid cause in China will embrace better development.

For more information, please visit www.chinalegalaid.gov.cn