Shaanxi intensifies efforts to promote legal publicity and education in rural areas

Since the beginning of this year, the administrative judicial departments of Northwest China's Shaanxi province have introduced multiple measures targeted at promoting legal publicity and education in rural areas, with a focus on the people's legal needs, to further implement the eighth five-year plan on carrying out legal publicity and education to raise public awareness of the rule of law.

Innovating forms of legal publicity and education

Shaanxi has made full use of such public spaces as rural cultural halls and bookstores to advance the construction of legal publicity and education bases in rural areas, including parks, squares, corridors and streets themed on the rule of law, so as to boost the presence of legal elements in public facilities, constantly improve the effectiveness of legal popularization and enhance public awareness of the rule of law.

To date, these cultural bases cover 86 percent of rural areas in Shaanxi, and over 90 percent of people have been stratified with the campaign on legal popularization and publicity.

Establishing a convenient public legal service system 

At present, Shaanxi has 21,141 public legal service centers, stations and studios that offer convenient "one-stop" legal services to meet the people's legal needs, according to an official with the province's justice department.

The province has given full play to the role of technology in supporting the construction of public legal service platforms, hotlines and online channels, and accelerated the application of such technologies as big data, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, in a bid to provide smart legal services.

It has also launched a service model featuring "one legal advisor, plus one WeChat group, plus one self-service system" among its villages and communities, and established a "one-stop" service system covering such matters as notarization, judicial forensics, legal aid and mediation. The public service centers, stations and studios have been established in the province's cities, counties, towns, districts, villages and communities, bringing greater convenience to residents.

Focusing on important industrial projects related to agriculture and rural areas, the province has organized lawyers and grassroots legal staff to conduct legal examinations for enterprises in rural areas. It has provided notarization services for villagers via video and certification services on a regular basis, offering legal guarantees to enterprises and people in rural areas.

According to statistics, the province has handled over 2,800 legal aid cases involving villagers, recovering losses of 180 million yuan (about $26.3 million), with a satisfactory rate of over 98 percent.

Creating a coordinated mediation mechanism to resolve disputes 

In addition, the province has also taken measures to create a coordinated mediation mechanism. To date, over 90 percent of the province's counties and districts have established lawyer mediation studios and database for experts, lecturers and cases on people's mediations, as well as television and smart mediation platforms.

It boasts 4,856 people's mediation committees, 1,001 professional people's mediation organizations, 320 mediation studios, and 103,490 legally savvy talents devoted to resolving disputes in rural areas.

Since 2022, Shaanxi has resolved over 81,000 disputes of all kinds, effectively maintaining social stability in rural areas.