Xinhua News, 2009-05-30
A series of news reports outlines the contents of a new legal aid campaign entitled “Making Legal Aid Services Convenient for the People,” to be launched nationwide by the Ministry of Justice in June 2009. According to sources within the Ministry, a major focus of the campaign will be lowering qualifications so the “coverage area” of legal aid is expanded to people whose income levels or legal problems—involving, for example, labor, social security, and land appropriation disputes—previously fell outside the scope of aid. The Ministry, however, will not issue mandatory, nationwide standards, but will “push local governments” to enact standards “in accordance with local levels of socio-economic development.” Also included in the campaign will be efforts to establish more conveniently located and clearly advertised legal aid offices with better floor plans designed to protect clients' privacy. The campaign additionally will include efforts to simplify the legal aid application process by issuing “legal aid cards (certificates)” to welfare recipients, “zero-income households and the disabled and elderly with special difficulties.”
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