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"Grassroots" Legal Service Organization: Property Change And Route Selection

Posted on:2009-12-11Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:R Z ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360245457509Subject:Foreign political system
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As for the paradox that the increasingly demand on the rural legal service and there is no hunger for rural legal service resource, together with the conflict for mass of farmer's inability to pay for the legal service, Township Legal Service Office, as one of the major suppliers of rural legal market and once relieved the short situation, nowadays is confronted an alternative that whether to further develop and unceasingly perfect or to let it run its own course without interference and die away. A series of questions demanding prompt consideration and solution, such as: For development, what is the way out? Where is the direction and what is the goal? To end up, what is the means? And so on. In detail, do the slightly different reform ideas or even the varied-widely ones conform to the survival logic of Township Legal Service Office? In the realistic context, is there any disjunction or deviation existing in the practice and theory research on the Reform of Township Legal Service Office? If any, what is the way for researcher to emphasize historic developing route while casting away the value prejudice and theoretical presuppositions, and propel the reformation of township legal service office in a practical aspect? All above-mentioned are main problems concerned in this article.This article systematically sorts out the development history of township legal service office from its first appearance, popularization, brilliance, adjustment since 1980 to the present state of "life or death". From the view of rural public service, put the township legal service office into different system context and concrete legal relationship, reviewing the service property of township legal service office upon the dynamic course of institutional change. It is considered that: In 1980s, the legal service generally fell into the scope of quasi-public service; Throughout 1990s, the legal service provided by township legal service office underwent a process from quasi-public service to rural quasi-private service; In the new century, for legal service, a newly community-based rural public service tendency are emerging in some rural areas.Remarkably was that "growing pains" and "predicament of development" once appeared in rural township legal service office when it went deeper at the turn of the century, with the entirely initiation of "separation of two offices" by the Ministry of Judiciary in September, 2000 and the official promulgation of Administrative License Law of the People's Republic of China three years later. There are lots of originated problems deserving deep consideration. They are: Why the "separation of two offices" expected by the reform is hesitated to ideally present in rural areas? What are the factors rendering sharp decline in township legal service office after the reorganization. Furthermore, in the realistic context of China rural area legality construction, to what degree it is legitimate to compulsorily carry out the "form-normalized" and "symbolized" reorganization.In the author's opinion, or change a view, the initiation of reorganization of township legal service office itself, to some extent, has somewhere improper and needs reflection. For instance, to meet the requirement of separating the township legal service office and township Justice Bureau by "A cut" sacrifices the pluralistic society's demand on the diversity of dispute resolution, judicial level and legal service. While rare contriving reform program from the township legal service workers' point of view or even never treat them as the main body of reform or the subject, failing to bring them into a full play, which may be a reason for the inadequate effect of reform; radically, vitality of a system sources from the real desire of society. Although the township legal service office inherently shows a high dependence on the policy, vigorous vitality manifested in its survival and development for the past 20 years is a best refute to the one-after-another restraining policy come forth of later years. With the advancement of urban-rural integration and gradual improvement of diverse dispute settlement mechanism, township legal service office is prone to near its end. However, what is more crucial is to pursue the reform of township legal service office based on the existing legal conditions, in the hope of bringing about really practical or substantial benefit.Based on this reflection, with consideration to the controversial argument on the prospect of township legal service office academic circles currently, it should be fundamentally pointed out that to determine the existence and abolition of a matter not only relays on the support or opposition in theory, but also on a basic and even decisive factor that whether there is a reasonable basis for its existence. Therefore, existence and abolition of township legal service office should not be given tremendous concerning or comments, while the matter how to construct a legal service supply system greatly suitable for the rural areas shall be paid adequate attention. Then, it is more seasonable to consider whether to abolish township legal service office as well as how to distribute township legal service workers to other legal service institute. As for reform program, it could still be considered to position the township legal service office as public welfare enterprises subordinated to Township People's Government. Nevertheless, there is somewhat lawbreaking suspension to backtract. Especially, how many townships will, throughout the whole country, adopt this measure since local governments are conducting large-scale township reform for the sake of relieving financial burden? The prospect is not so optimistic. That bringing the township legal service workers into lawyer management system through revision of the Lawyers Law is operationally feasible from the sense of technique. However, the subsequent practice indicated that negative response has been actually given to the unified system program, which results in the revision of the Lawyers Law voted through the Thirtieth Session of the Tenth NPC has not been adopted in the end. For the currently emerging region-expanded tendency of "rural legal service goes to town", it is clear that township legal service office shall recur to the rural and find its feet in providing legal service to local farmers. Most especially, as the construction of socialist new countryside is advancing comprehensively, the status and function of township legal service office will become clear. Township legal service office, born in the rural, serves the rural, which is the real returning of function of township legal service office.Along the above route, since the successive reform after the reorganization of township legal service office, the act of transferring the basic public service office into lawyer office in Xuanwu district, Jiangsu province goes with the tide of social development, providing a optional approach for the expand and criterion of legal service market. As a result, township legal service office will exert lawyer charging standards and the operation mode embodies commercial inclination, which to some extent not only weakens the survival basis of township legal service office but also makes it anxious to meet the bottom legal demand of vast farmers in rural areas in the future. Tianping Street Public Mediation Committee Office in Xuhui district, Shanghai is a transformation from Tianping Street Legal Service Office, which integrates basic legal service and public mediation in order to make the public mediation service standardized, specialized and socialized. From a generalization point of view, it will not necessarily put into practice at once, one reason of which is that this mode highly depends on local finance. The transformation of Duandian legal service office of Hubei to legal service center underlies government's basic public service function, an original mode to explore and construct rural public legal service supply. However, this brand-new attempt remains to be seen in the practice. In particular, when viewing the contracted relation between Duandian town government and legal service center from the standpoint of Administrative Law, the most conspicuous defect is that the administrative obligation is slight, legal service center as a administrative unit put too much obligation on workers. On the whole, in the historic course of township legal service office springing up currently, decision-makers of reform shall not limit their visual field and focus to the scope of township or the township legal service office itself but adequately master and reflect the already gain and loss of reform experience to provide reference for current system reform of rural legal service, and research reform route and content adequate for rural regional characteristic as well as sufficiently considering the background of developing rural economy and society on the basis of mastering reform exploration in different areas.It is worth mentioning that the revision of Administrative License Law of the People's Republic of China voted through on the Thirtieth Session of the Tenth NPC on October 28, 2007. Take the chance of tremendous public controversy of township legal service office, the author believes that the four following regulations and measures are all facing the fate of amending or abolition owing to lost their corresponding base of legitimacy: Regulation on Township Legal Service Operation, Measures on Charging Management of Township Legal Service, as well as Measures on Management of Basic Legal Service and Measures on Management of Basic Legal Service Workers.Confronted such a predicament, Ministry of Judiciary expects to specify the job description of basic legal service in the newly revised Layers Law in order to make preparation for the subsequent Measures on Management of Basic Legal Service stipulated by State Council and legitimize the existence of basic legal service office and its workers. However, it indicates that actually State Council has immediately given negative response to the program in the subsequent practice. According to regulations in the latest edition of Lawyer Law, for the workers those have not obtained lawyer's practice certificate are only required to engage in legal service without the name of lawyer, unless otherwise specified can they have the access to advocacy or defenses. Further considered from combining three old procedural laws, township legal service workers, to some extent, indeed find out a legal living room as long as they only represent case in the name of citizen or legal service worker. Nevertheless, once this possible legal living room actually operates in the practice, it is to be expected that the three parties, i.e. township legal service office, township legal service workers and the third party will reach an unspoken understanding in the aspects of authorization and charging, etc. What's more, other local relevant personnel and institutes will facilitate and support the unspoken understanding, which may as well be called "legal cahoot".Radically, only to break through the current system framework and seek an original developing route can well solve the currently embarrassed legal status of township legal service office. Our nation has advanced into a new stage of "promote the development of agriculture with industry, bring along the development of the countryside with cities" since the coming of the new century. The development strategy correspondingly adjusts to "getting industry to support agriculture and cities to support the countryside". In this layer sense, from then on the reform of township legal service office will not deviate from the new train of thought of "bring along the development of the countryside with cities" and "cities to support the countryside", while the transformation route from township legal service office to nonprofit legal service organization of rural community is a new trend.
Keywords/Search Tags:township legal service office, rural legal service, rural public service
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