By Zhang Wencheng
The first campaign under the theme of “Year of Justice Administration Development in Community” has begun for keeping the momentum of legal reform and the authority’s closing ties with the grassroots, according to the Justice Bureau of Hongkou District.
Prompt settlement of disputes for the people
An official in charge of the themed drive says the authority has attached great importance to “popular participation” and adopted various methods to lean towards ground-level administration with the aim of easing their pressure. It is reported young lawyers and their counterparts with the CPC jointly launched activities to work hand in hand and face to face with the community residents to meet their justice demands. Over 500 lawyers have participated in 179 community-level law lectures and consultations. Besides, on the district and sub-district level, volunteer work stations for CPC members have been set up. On the residential communities, sub-stations have been put in place. Those volunteers will undertake regular visit, phone consultations and mail exchanges with the residents, giving full play to their roles as legal guide, consultant and publicity agent.
By reaching into the frontier of administration, the justice work could avail itself of solving disputes and conflicts in the first time. An official with the district’s justice bureau says they have established a work mechanism billed as “Six ways of probe and coordination” after trial and error and organized 38 training session for over 3,000 people together with the district court and mediation association. With an eye on the demands of the residential committees, they make annual plans for the training of mediators to improve their trouble-shooting skills.
Statistics show the mediation associations from top to the bottom in the Hongkou District have solved 11,596 of the 14,114 disputes they handled in 2014, securing a successful rate of 82%. The Medical Dispute Mediation Work Office with the district’s Legal Assistance Center has been founded to help the patients protect and fight for their rights in legal ways so as to improve the mediation between the hospitals and the patients. It is reported there are 166 settlements out of 190 disputes that reached the office.
The themed campaign covers all community residents, including those special ones. In 2014, the district has accepted over 600 people on their community correction program. A source with the justice bureau says the authorities have enhanced their service for these people by offer them job placements and employment training. By working together with the district’s employment promotion center, the bureau has organized workshops to teach the delinquents employable skills. Besides, the bureau provides various kinds of assistance to deal with their real difficulties and work with the jail to improve related work.
Forge ahead with the construction of a district marked by rule of law
Hongkou steadily advances its endeavor in building a city of rule of law in the justice administration development campaign and model institutions. It is learned the district’s Justice Bureau has won the honor of ‘National Advanced Institution in Mid-term Appraisal During the 6th Five-year Plan for Law Popularization’, the Public Security Bureau and the Bureau of Quality Supervision were both awarded the award of ‘Model Institution of Administration by law of Shanghai’ and the Ouyang Road Sub-district has got the prize of “Model of Standardized Construction of Grassroot Administration by Law”.
The year of 2015 will see the implementation of the great strategy of pushing forward rule of law in an all-round way and the acceleration in the building of ‘rule of law city district’. This year will also see deeds in place on the reform and innovation front as well as the performance of justice service around the priorities of the district’s CPC committee and government. It will mark the conclusion of the 12th five-year plan for social and economy growth and the 6th five-year plan for law popularization.
An officer with the justice bureau says they will remain committed to strengthening the mediation work by the people and the social dispute prevention and solving system, they will move forward to deepen the efforts in community correction and improve the supervision system for the communities where delinquencies occur. They will also perfect their supervision and control on lawyer services to develop the legal service system in a scientific way, while adopt innovative and far-reaching methods regarding the publicity and education work in a bid to bring forth new ideas in building the justice publicity system. Last but not the least, the bureau will work discreetly with an eye on the details to build a strong working force in order to optimize the staff management system in the judicial sector.
“We will make the constructive outcomes of the campaign accessible to the people to provide them with better justice service,” says the officer.