Shandong advances public legal services for poverty-stricken people

The provincial regulation on public legal services, which took effect on Jan 1 of this year in East China's Shandong province, mark the latest effort by the province to promote the rule of law.

Shandong will significantly expand the scope of public legal services to better meet the needs of the public for the rule of law, fairness and justice, said Wang Yujun, head of the province's department of justice.

According to the regulation, in the provision of pro bono legal services, priority will be given to groups including low-income families, the disabled, rural migrant workers, military personnel and their immediate family, as well as military veterans.

The regulation also specifies that every villagers' or residents' committee should be equipped with a legal counsel. In 2020, 14,000 legal counsels who are either lawyers or legal workers provided various pro bono services to 66,000 villages and communities in Shandong 960,000 times

Meanwhile, special attention has been given to the issues of migrant workers' wage arrears and rights protection. Legal assistance agencies across the province have launched campaigns including setting up green channels to provide quality legal services for migrant workers.

In 2020, agencies in Shandong handled a total of 24,000 lawsuits on wage arrears, offering legal assistance to 39,000 migrant workers.  

Also in 2020, the financial loss retrieved for the public through legal aid in Shandong rose to nearly 2 billion yuan, up from 1.1 billion yuan in 2016.