Guangdong’s judicial department dedicated to keeping social governance on legal track

At a recent videoconference on modernization of municipal-level social governance, the provincial justice department of Guangdong, a southern province, reported the work it has done to establish a law-based governance pattern:

1. Improving legislation on social governance. The department has implemented the revised provincial regulation on wildlife protection which was the province's first piece of legislation to be enacted this year. It has also implemented a set of social governance-related regulations including one on school safety.

2. Advancing the campaign of demonstration establishment for law-based government building. So far, five areas and projects in Guangdong have been placed on the national demonstration list for building a law-based government, making Guangdong one of the provinces with most such demonstrations in the country.

3. The department has promoted release of the rules requiring the provincial government to report to the standing committee of the provincial people's congress before making major decisions, and set up legal counsel offices in all provincial, prefectural and county-level governments, effectively guaranteeing the correct operation of the government within the legal framework.

4. Cutting more administrative certificates. After removing the certification requirement for 1,220 administrative items, the province now has only 36 such items that still require certificates. Meanwhile, the notification and commitment system is being rolled out across the province.

5. Updating the province's public legal service network. The department has been committed to supplying inclusive and integrated public legal services, and is trying to make such services smarter and more targeted. So far, it has provided such services for more than 9.46 million people. In addition, it has institutionalized the practice of leading officials answering the public legal service hotline.

6. Stepping up law publicity effort. The department has initiated revision of the provincial regulation on Law publicity, and extended the coverage of an assessment mechanism for implementation of the rule - administrative law enforcement agencies are responsible for law publicity - to all the cities and 90 percent of the counties in the province.

7. Organizing lawyers to serve private enterprises. Lawyers' teams in Guangdong have conducted legal risk examination for over 71,000 local private enterprises since the COVID-19 outbreak.

8. Promoting mediation. The department has established 278 mediation studios and a mediation organization. In 2019, more than 460,000 disputes across the province were resolved through mediation.

9. Strengthening legal aid. The department has extended legal aid coverage to about a quarter of the province's population and all the criminal cases tried by courts around the province.