Xinhua News, 2009-06-09
At the fifth annual “National Legal Aid Work Conference,” Minister of Justice Wu Aiying said the number of cases handled by legal aid organizations has been increasing by 30% per year since 2004. Among the many areas of legal aid she singled out for increased focus, Wu noted the need to “earnestly handle” criminal defense, especially in cases involving the physically handicapped, juveniles and those potentially facing capital punishment. Legal aid organizations should, “according to law, offer defense and representation to economically disadvantaged parties to criminal cases, and uphold the procedural rights of criminal suspects, criminal defendants, and victims.” According to the Ministry of Justice, China currently has 3,268 legal aid organizations at the county-level and above and 55,708 lower-level legal aid stations—all manned by a total of only 12,778 “legal aid organization staff.”
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