Voluntary legal aid seen to help poor
By Qin Jize (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-02-22 01:41

China plans to build up a relatively comprehensive voluntary legal aid service system within two years in an effort to provide increased quality legal service to the poor, an official with Ministry of Justice said yesterday.

"Legal assistance needs support from volunteers. To mobilize the public to participate in legal aid is one of this year's working targets," said Zhang Shi, an official with the Legal Aid Centre of the Ministry of Justice.

People with nowhere else to turn women, senior citizens, children and other low-income residents can get help from legal aid, a kind of judicial relief, including the reduction or exemption of service fees.

Zhang said legal aid volunteers has become an important part of the legal aid system that is generally practiced in different countries of the world.

Three goals need to be achieved before China can establish a better voluntary service system that conforms to its national situation, Zhang said.

They include more convenient registration access for volunteers, a well-organized and trained voluntary team and new legal aid programmes, Zhang said.

"We are thinking of sending legal aid volunteers to the counties where there is no legal professional at all, to offer legal consultation," he said.

According to Zhang, there are more than 200 counties in China which have no legal professionals at all.

Zhang said legal volunteers are not the same as other ordinary volunteers because they have professional requirements.

The majority of the current Chinese legal aid volunteers are working lawyers who are able to provide legal advice and representation to low-income residents.

"In fact, people who are qualified to be legal aid volunteers fall into three categories," Zhang said.

The first group is composed of lawyers, notaries, basic legal service workers, law school students and professionals with lawyers' licenses and retired legal workers.

The second batch of people includes journalists who are responsible for reporting legal stories and "their responsibility is to publicize the national legal aid system so as to promote the judicial justice."

The last are the warm-hearted social activists who are able to donate or raise the legal aid fund.

Legal aid volunteerism is not a new concept for China. The country selected 11 provinces and cities across the country as pilot sites last year.

Hundreds of thousands of people signed up with local legal aid centres but the exact figure is not available.

In Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, the local legal aid centre has recruited about 2,000 volunteers so far.

"Several kinds of professionals are welcomed," said Lin Shengguang, an official with the centre. Especially needed are those capable of sign language, as well as doctors who might be able to offer assistance to the disabled or proivide medical checkups in needed cases.

(China Daily 02/22/2005 page2)

Close

Today's Top News     Top China News
Non-government group plans to lease, develop Diaoyudao         FM: US-Japan statement on Taiwan wrong         Brown: China's peaceful rise not a threat         Senior Chinese official consults DPRK         Private airlines ready to take off in China         Medical research on stem cells to continue	Medical research on stem cells to continue       Private airlines ready to take off in China       Banks to launch fund companies       Hunt on for 19 sailors in two boat accidents       Taining included in UNESCO's geopark list       Donated relics to help revive image of old Beijing