Shantou Legal Aid: demand outstrips supply 法律援助供不應求

The sole office of Jinping District Legal Aid Center is located in an old building in a lane. As the only regular receptionist in the Legal Aid, Yang shares one small office with the chief who's in charge of the center. Next to the reception room is the locked and abandoned office for the chief, now just a dusty room.

"We are short of funds to enlarge our work," Yang said. "We've bitten off more than we can chew."

On the wall there are name lists of three lawyers who are supposed to be the consultant for people who come to seek legal help. However, according to Yang, they are three of the public lawyers in the justice department of the district government. Just hanging their photos on the wall is not especially serving here in the aid center.

The legal aid system in China is different from the western justice system. It is a governmental organization. Each government on different level has legal aid center, supervised by justic department. China's legal aid system was started late in last century. The Regulation on Legal Aid was issued and put into used in 2003. So far, almost every city nationwide has legal aids for the needy people, including those having financial difficulties like migrant workers, and those who need but have no custodians.

The Municipal Legal Aid of Shantou was established relatively late, but it has been one of the best in recent years, receiving many awards both for the organization and the lawyers. Besides the municipal Aid Center, each district has aid subsidy supervised by justice department of district of local government, too.

But the development of the Aid Center in each district has been unbalanced. Longhu Legal Aid is comparatively well conducted.

Although Longhu Aid has homogenous shortage of personnel, there are three regular lawyers including one chief who work here. The new office is well furnished and decorated. The Longhu District is a comparatively rich and has many industrial firms located, hence many more migrant workers. Therefore, migrant workers comprise largest group of visitors who come here seeking for help--more than half of the total--according to logistics staffer Zhang in Longhu Legal Aid.

"Personnel are few, tasks are heavy," said Zhang. Because of limited personnel, they've not kept statistics of the amount of cases they have helped; but he said they accept several hundred cases annually.

The lawyers working for Legal Aid in China have the dual role of attorney and national public official, which determines that they cannot accept employment personally, being paid not better but more stably as a public servant.

Yao, one of the three lawyers in this Longhu Legal Aid, knows very well the conflicts between the migrant workers and entrepreneurs. Migrant workers are one of the major groups in need of legal assistance due to economic difficulties and social status.

"The migrant workers are really tough," said Yao. "So law and government policies tend to favor their side." Still they are the weak group, said Yao.

As Chinese Spring Festival approached, the staff in Longhu Legal Aid met many migrant workers who didn't get their salary on time and were ready for home for Lunar New Year. At the beginning of this year, they dealt with another peak of work because a large number of migrant workers were seeking for advice on the Chinese New Contract Law. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of the shortage of the consultants, some prompt actions were taken. For example, lawyers in the law office should participate in the aid, suggested Yao.

Statistics offered by municipal Legal Aid Center located in Huashan Road show that about 50 staff members are working at the legal aid office in the whole city, of which there are only a few more then 20 lawyers. The personnel flow frequently, said Mr. H, an insider who requested that his full name not be used.

According to a report copy given by Mr. H, by November 2007, under the organization of Shantou Legal Aid assistant lawyers in the city have accepted 6,835 cases, helped write nearly 10,000 pleading papers, and have been consulted by more than 4 thousands visitors. It was awarded by governments from the local to the national level several times over.

Leaving the reputation aside, Mr. H talked more about the vacancies in Legal Aid to this reporter of News Myshantou. He emphasized that the needy group is not all satisfied and it is beyond the capability of Legal Aid system, which belongs to the government. "It is not realistic to place the entire burden on government," He said.

As far as Mr. H knows, there aren't any NGO or independent sectors for legal aid in Shantou.

"Some assistant works, including legal aid, should've been accomplished by society," said Mr.H. "The government should not, and is not able to take the entire burden."

"Nowadays, China lacks the folk power [non-governmental power], social organization, intermediary organization," he said. "They are not developed, so the society is still not so harmonious."

Having been engaged in legal aid for nearly 10 years, Mr. H believes the demand for legal services will be increasing, resulting in a larger need for free legal assistance.

One of the solutions is to refer some people to other places that can help them rather then accepting the cases directly. For example, some people will be guided to write a pleading paper or find an attorney in law firms. Another way commonly used in China is avoiding court lawsuit by mediation, so they can help the needy efficiently and save on costs.

Most of the visitors coming for help have Low awareness of law and poor ability to protect their rights. Not protecting the evidence well from damage and not watching timeliness is a biggest problem, making the work more troublesome for the lawyers to handle the cases, said Mr. H.

"My work is actually quite tedious and trivial," added Mr. H. "But, seen from a higher perspective, the work is still quite significant."