Can Legal Aid Services Offer Justice for All?

(Beijing) – Demand for free legal services has been growing at twice the rate of overall economic expansion in China, a statistic that's contributed to some serious soul-searching at the Ministry of Justice and State Council.

Legal aid agencies processed more than 1 million court cases on behalf of low-income or otherwise disadvantaged people nationwide last year, including 990,000 civil lawsuits and 240,000 criminal cases, the ministry reported. That caseload reflected a 14 percent increase over the previous year's demand – a growth rate that has held steady every year for the past five years.