Suggestions on strengthening the construction of rural legal service system in China.

First of all, building a rural public welfare legal service system is an objective requirement for strengthening rural legal services.

The so-called effective supply refers to the supply that is compatible with consumer demand and consumption capacity. At present, on the one hand, the demand for rural legal services is growing day by day; On the other hand, the effective supply of rural legal services is obviously insufficient to meet the needs of various rural organizations and farmers.

(a) The demand for legal services in rural areas is increasing.

At present, with the rapid development of rural economy and society and the deepening of rural reform, the problems and contradictions related to law in rural areas have increased greatly, and the demand for legal services by various rural organizations and farmers has increased day by day.

First of all, the improvement of rural economic development level has driven the growth of rural legal service demand. The development of rural economy will inevitably promote the growth of rural legal service demand, and pose a severe challenge to the traditional legal service system and legal service model. Especially with the adjustment of rural economic structure and the promotion of agricultural industrialization, farmers have set up various types of professional cooperative economic organizations, and legal services are urgently needed to play an active role in regulating professional cooperative economic organizations and their behaviors and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of professional cooperative economic organizations and their members.

Second, the development of democracy and legal system construction at the grass-roots level in rural areas has driven the growth of demand for rural legal services. Promoting the construction of democracy and legal system at the grass-roots level in rural areas involves a large number of legal issues. There is an urgent need for legal service workers to guide and help farmers to correctly exercise their rights of democratic election, democratic management and democratic supervision, and to guide and assist rural grassroots cadres to manage grassroots affairs and solve grassroots contradictions by legal means.

Third, the gradual enhancement of farmers' modern consciousness has driven the growth of rural legal service demand. With the adjustment of social structure and the deepening of rural law popularization, the vast rural areas, especially the economically developed rural areas, began to change from a closed and semi-closed society to an open society. Farmers' horizons are gradually broadened, their awareness of rights is gradually established, and their consciousness and initiative of safeguarding rights according to law are gradually enhanced.

(2) The effective supply of legal services in rural areas is obviously insufficient.

First, rural legal service resources are scarce, and farmers generally cannot obtain legal services nearby. Legal service institutions and personnel are concentrated in cities, and the allocation of legal service resources between urban and rural areas is unbalanced, which is a common phenomenon in all countries of the world, including developed countries. However, due to the long-term dual structure of urban and rural economy in China, this phenomenon is particularly prominent. Take our city as an example. By the end of April 2007, the number of lawyers in our city had reached14,200, ranking first in China. However, the vast majority of lawyers practice in the eight districts of the city, and only 375 lawyers practice in 10 suburban counties, accounting for only 2.6% of the total number of lawyers in the city. Moreover, lawyers in the outer suburbs are basically concentrated in the seat of the county government, and there are only a handful of lawyers who actually practice in rural towns.

Second, the rural economy is relatively backward, and farmers generally cannot afford market-oriented legal services. The reason why most farmers are unwilling to solve disputes through legal services may be one of the reasons, but it is not the fundamental reason. The main crux of the problem is the high cost of legal services and the low economic affordability of farmers.

The establishment of rural modern legal service system depends on the improvement of rural market economy and the substantial increase of farmers' income. And this is not achievable in the short term.

In addition, the rural public welfare legal service system stems from the government's responsibility to provide basic public services. At present, the contradiction between the increasing demand for rural legal services and the lack of rural legal service resources and the poor tolerance of farmers for market-oriented legal services is very prominent. The effective way to solve this problem is to adhere to the government's leadership, mobilize and organize social forces extensively, and actively build a rural public welfare legal service system in accordance with the requirements of promoting the equalization of basic public services. It is not only the inherent requirement of promoting the construction of a new socialist countryside, but also the responsibility and obligation of the government to establish a rural public welfare legal service system and tilt the government's public policies and basic public service products to the countryside.

Second, the construction of rural public welfare legal service system

To build a rural public welfare legal service system, we must first define the concept of rural public welfare legal service system. Although public welfare legal service is a term often mentioned in the practice of legal service in recent years, there is no exact legal definition at present.

The author believes that public welfare legal service is a non-profit legal service aimed at safeguarding the public interests and facing the grassroots. Therefore, the rural public welfare legal service is a non-profit legal service, which aims to safeguard the interests of the rural public and serve farmers and migrant workers.

(A) the objectives and guiding principles of the construction of rural public welfare legal service system

The author believes that at present and in the future, the goal and task of the construction of rural public welfare legal service system is to take the government as the leading factor, take rural public welfare legal service organizations as the backbone, widely mobilize social forces to participate, strive to build a public welfare legal service system with reasonable structure, balanced development, sound network and effective operation, covering the whole rural area, and effectively protect the rights and interests of farmers to know legal knowledge and obtain basic legal services.

According to the above objectives and tasks, the construction of rural public welfare legal service system should pay attention to the following principles:

1. government-led principle. The government is the provider of basic social public services. The nature of public welfare legal services determines that the government must assume the responsibility of providing basic legal services for rural areas.

2. The principle of meeting basic needs. After all, public welfare legal service is a supplement to market-oriented legal service, which should be oriented to meet the most basic legal needs of farmers and focus on solving the most concerned, direct and realistic interests of rural organizations and farmers with limited funds and strength.

3. The principle of extensive participation of social forces. In the process of promoting the construction of rural public welfare legal service system, on the one hand, the government should play a leading role, on the other hand, it should organize and mobilize social forces to actively participate in public welfare legal service, and strive to realize the diversification of organizational forms and service subjects of rural public welfare legal service system.

4. The principle of adjusting measures to local conditions. To promote the construction of rural public welfare legal service system, we must adhere to local conditions and classify guidance, and we must not "cut across the board" or "rush to March".

(B) the service subject of the rural public welfare legal service system

In the field of public affairs, it is impossible for any single discipline to solve all complex, diverse and dynamic public affairs. Therefore, it is the primary task to actively cultivate diversified service subjects composed of government departments, enterprises, the third sector and citizens to build a rural public welfare legal service system.

In April 2006, our city began to set up rural public welfare legal service institutions in the outer suburbs. After more than a year's practice, Yanqing, Shunyi and other pilot counties have initially formed a diversified rural public welfare legal service subject with township public welfare legal service centers and village legal service offices as the main body, supplemented by legal aid institutions, non-governmental public welfare legal service institutions and other legal service institutions (legal service workers).

1. Public welfare community legal service organization led by the government

While constantly improving the construction of market-oriented legal service system, many countries in the world are actively supporting institutions specializing in public welfare legal services. Britain's "Citizens' Advisory Bureau", France's "Home of Justice and Law" and Japan's "Neighboring Legal Service Institutions" all belong to this kind of institutions. At present, China's legal service intermediary organizations are not developed and mature enough. Supporting and subsidizing those small-scale and weak non-governmental public welfare legal service organizations is far from meeting the needs of farmers for public welfare legal services. It is necessary to establish a number of public welfare community legal service organizations led and supported by the government, and promote their development into the backbone of rural public welfare legal services. Township public welfare legal service center is a public welfare community legal service organization established by the government to purchase services, and it is an important platform for the government to play a leading role in the construction of rural public welfare legal service system. At present, there are two types of typical township public welfare legal service centers in our city: Yanqing model and Shunyi model:

-"Yanqing mode". In June 2006, Yanqing county took the lead in establishing 13 township public welfare legal service centers in the city, which did not occupy administrative and career establishment. Except for three towns in the eastern mountainous area, which rely on the public welfare legal service centers of neighboring towns to carry out business because of the relatively small demand for legal services, all other towns have realized "one town (township) and one center". Each center consists of two or three public welfare legal service workers, who are openly recruited for the society. Recruiters are mainly unemployed people with legal professional qualifications above junior college, supplemented by retirees from public security and legal departments. The main duties of the public welfare legal service center are: to provide free legal consulting services for rural organizations and farmers, to mediate rural contradictions and disputes, to serve as legal advisers for township and village collectives, to represent the litigation and non-litigation business of township governments, village collectives and rural economic cooperative organizations for free, and to represent farmers' civil and economic disputes within a specific scope for free.

-"Shunyi Model". From June 2006 to February 2006, Shunyi District established town-level legal service centers integrating people's mediation, legal publicity, legal aid and legal consulting services in all 18 towns in the whole district. Each center has 1 to two full-time mediators (most of them are local law graduates or junior college graduates, and a few are retirees from the political and legal system) as fixed service personnel, 1 full-time lawyers and 1 judges as mobile service personnel. The lawyers of the center are appointed by the township governments, and the judges are appointed by the four dispatched courts of Shunyi District Court.

The main duties of the town-level legal service center are: serving as the legal adviser of the town government, mediating contradictions and disputes in rural areas, carrying out legal publicity, providing legal advisory services free of charge, and assisting in handling agricultural legal aid cases.

2. Public welfare legal service organizations in mass autonomous communities supported by the government.

The experience of some countries shows that the public welfare legal activities carried out by community autonomous organizations for the purpose of serving themselves play an important role in promoting the development of public welfare legal services in the whole society. In China, since the founding of New China, the people's mediation organization, a mass autonomous organization, has done a lot of work and played a very important role in serving itself and the society. How to grasp the characteristics of people's mediation in the new period and give full play to the role of rural grassroots people's mediation organizations in legal services and legal publicity is an important content to promote the construction of rural public welfare legal service system.

In the second half of 2006, our city summarized and popularized the experience of establishing legal service rooms in nine new rural construction pilot villages, such as Zhugeying Village and Beizang Village in Daxing District, relying on village-level mediation organizations and cultural complexes. By the end of 2006, legal service rooms had been established in 500 pilot villages of new rural construction in the city. In 2007, we decided to build 1500 legal service rooms in 1000 villages and 500 communities in the whole city. This work was included in the Beijing municipal government's practical project for the masses in 2007. Village legal service room is a comprehensive legal service institution based on the establishment of village people's mediation committee, the guidance and management of township judicial offices, the participation of people's mediators and social legal volunteers. It is a working platform for judicial administrative functions to extend to the grassroots. Its main duties are: first, to carry out people's mediation, legal publicity and legal consultation; The second is to collect and transmit the information of rural people's demand for legal services, and organize professional legal service workers to provide legal services to farmers in their villages from time to time. The staff of the legal service room consists of fixed service personnel and mobile service personnel. The fixed service personnel are the backbone of the village people's mediation, 1 2, and the mobile service personnel are composed of judicial assistants, lawyers, retired judges and legal volunteers, who regularly go deep into the village to carry out their work.

3. Non-governmental voluntary public welfare legal service organizations and volunteers.

In some developed countries, non-governmental public welfare legal service institutions are the main providers of public welfare legal services. In recent years, with the continuous development of market economy, China's social structure has undergone profound changes, and a large number of non-governmental organizations have emerged, and some non-governmental public welfare legal service institutions have also emerged. According to incomplete statistics, at present, there are more than a dozen non-governmental public welfare legal service institutions in our city, such as Beijing Migrant Workers' Legal Aid Workstation, Beijing Yilian Labor Legal Aid and Research Center, Free Legal Consultation Hotline when the rule of law is in progress, Xu Tao Legal Service Network, Love Navigation Cultural Exchange Center, Home of Floating Population Website, Bird Migrant Workers Hotline, Lu Xiaoya Youth Hotline, Beijing Women's Rights Protection Hotline, Hongfeng Women's Hotline and Meilinkai Domestic Violence Hotline. In addition, there are a large number of social volunteers who are enthusiastic about public welfare legal publicity and legal services. A considerable number of these institutions and volunteers mainly serve farmers and migrant workers and play an important role in building a rural public welfare legal service system.

4. Law firms and lawyers

Lawyers are the main providers of legal services. The legal profession has the characteristics of compensation and competition, as well as public welfare. The professional nature of lawyers determines that lawyers have the responsibility and obligation to undertake public welfare legal services. In recent years, the lawyer industry in the capital has actively participated in public welfare legal services and achieved good social benefits. Lawyers have played an important role in the construction of rural public welfare legal service system in our city, whether it is the township public welfare legal service center or the village legal service room. The aforementioned Beijing Migrant Workers' Legal Aid Workstation, Beijing Yilian Labor Legal Aid and Research Center, the rule of law free legal consultation hotline and Xu Tao legal service network were all founded by or relying on lawyers. In particular, Tong Lihua, a lawyer from Beijing Zhicheng Law Firm, established a legal aid workstation for migrant workers in Beijing based on Zhicheng Law Firm. In the past two years, he has represented nearly 2000 cases of migrant workers' litigation rights protection, which has aroused strong repercussions from all walks of life.

5. Government departments and relevant institutions

Government departments and related institutions are also one of the important subjects of rural public welfare legal services. In addition to indirectly providing basic legal services to rural areas by purchasing services, the government also directly provides farmers with public welfare legal services by implementing legal aid and sending them to the countryside.

In addition to the above five types of subjects, the subjects of rural public welfare legal services also include grassroots legal service offices and grassroots legal service workers, as well as other organizations and individuals providing public welfare legal services in rural areas. The above-mentioned service subjects are different from each other in service functions, complement each other in service contents and have their own characteristics in service methods, which together constitute the organizational system of rural public welfare legal services.