New programme provides access to justice in remote parts of China

The purpose of a new Access to Justice programme is to support China in assessing legal aid policy and to improve access to justice for people in remote and inaccessible areas, particularly disadvantaged groups.

The Danish Institute for Human Rights has a leading role in the implementation of the major new Access to Justice Programme, which was launched at a ceremony in Beijing on 19 March.

Paul Dalton of the Institute’s Justice and Rule of Law Department heads the programme implementation team in Beijing, and Senior China Expert Dr Hatla Thelle is working as a consultant on a baseline study on legal aid service provision being carried out during 2014.

- We hope that through this programme the Institute will contribute to a legacy of enhanced access to justice for people in the three pilot provinces, as well as to development of new policies and regulations inspired by from European best practices and focused on improving and standardizing the quality and scope of legal aid, Paul Dalton explains.

Lawyers are hundreds of miles away
There are almost no lawyers working in Inner Mongolia outside the major cities. In some districts, ‘legal workers’, people who have completed a certificate course qualifying them to provide basic legal services, can provide basic assistance and information about how people can apply for legal aid or State-sponsored mediation.At village level, information centres run by volunteers can hand out information about government services, including contact details to the nearest legal aid centre.

The programme will start by conducting a baseline study in order to assist the Chinese legal aid system in policy development and in identifying priorities for future legal aid support. Pilot programmes addressing these priorities and introducing best legal aid practices from the European countries will be conducted during the subsequent years of the programme.

These pilot activities will run parallel to other programme activities: policy dialogues between European and Chinese legal aid experts on challenges in legal aid work; practical skills training and resource materials for legal aid providers; and work towards the establishment of quality standards for legal aid service provision.

The programme will improve outreach to vulnerable groups and to people living in remote locations and areas where legal services are not readily available. One means by which this can be achieved is to provide support for the work of paralegals and of volunteers in rural areas where there are few or no practicing lawyers.

Experiences from Europe, Africa and Asia have demonstrated that well-trained and supported paralegals and volunteers can effectively resolve many simple legal problems, freeing up time for legal aid centre staff and practicing lawyers to focus on the more complicated cases. It is possible to significantly increase the capacity of the legal aid system without any decrease in the quality of services provided.

The project is a cooperation between the EU and the British Council.