The following suggestions are made for the implementation of the notice of the Ministry of Justice on Further Strengthening and Promoting the Work of Lawyers forwarded by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council:
To implement this notice, there are issues that need to be resolved in coordination with the relevant external departments, as well as issues that the judicial administration itself resolves.
First of all, the problems that need to be solved by external departments:
1. Establish a joint meeting mechanism involving public, procuratorate, legal, and departmental departments, and establish a long-term coordination mechanism and information sharing mechanism. Communication involves the work of lawyers, develops problems in a timely manner, and studies and proposes solutions.
2. Improve the protection of lawyers’ practice environment, such as difficulties in meeting with lawyers, difficult in reviewing files, and difficult in investigations. Seize this opportunity to solve the problem by coordinating relevant departments to issue documents or passing legislation by the National People's Congress.
3. Coordinating government departments to promulgate government legal consultant employment methods. Provisions are made for the payment of hiring fees for legal consultants at all levels of government, those are public welfare services, how the government subsidizes; those are fee-based legal services, how the fees are collected, etc. Make specific regulations on the government's purchase of legal services.
4. Negotiate with the financial department to raise the legal aid subsidy standard.
5. Coordinate the relevant government departments to incorporate lawyer training into the local fiscal budget, and incorporate the continuing education of lawyers into the professional and technical personnel continuing education system.
6. Coordinate with the organization department to promote the selection of civil servants from outstanding lawyers to work in party and government agencies.
7. Coordinating with the United Front Work Department of the Municipal Party Committee, pay attention to the role of the judicial administrative agency in recommending and fighting for the working procedures of selecting lawyers to serve as representatives of the People's Congress and members of the CPPCC.
8. Coordinate with the Municipal Finance Office, the Municipal Development and Reform Commission and other departments, recommend and select excellent law firms and lawyers, and provide legal services for Chinese companies listed domestically and abroad and large-scale backbone state-owned enterprises related to the national economy and the people’s livelihood.
9. Coordinate with the municipal editorial committee and other departments to increase the staffing of city and district (county) lawyer management staff, and to convert the Secretariat of the Municipal Lawyers Association into a professional staffing.
10. Coordinate with the municipal finance department, increase funding support for the lawyers association, and study and solve the problems related to the funding of the office of the lawyers association.
11. Contact with the Organization Department of the Municipal Party Committee to give preference to the issue of recruiting party members among lawyers, and select party building work instructors or liaisons for larger law firms or law firms with more party members.
12. Negotiate with the organization department, the political and legal committee and other departments to explore new ways to select outstanding lawyers and party members to work in the political and legal organs. Secondly, as the judicial administrative department and the Lawyers Association need to solve the problems in the implementation of this document:
1. Fully consult and coordinate with the municipal party committee, municipal government and relevant departments, and use this opportunity to strive to implement the spirit of the document to the maximum extent.
2. Strengthen the construction of lawyers' integrity, establish lawyers' integrity files, implement the lawyer's integrity oath system, the law firm integrity convention system, and select AAA, AA, A-level law firms or integrity law firms.
3. Make full use of lawyer training bases and financial support to increase lawyers’ political quality, professional quality, and professional skills training.
4. It is recommended to introduce accounting methods for the lawyer industry as soon as possible.
5. Strengthen the internal management systems of law firms such as system management, risk control, quality control, and personnel management. Clarify the management responsibilities of the heads and partners of the law firm, and establish and improve the system and accountability mechanism for reminding the heads of the law firm to talk to them.
6. Strengthen the combined management of judicial administration and lawyers associations, and improve the working mechanism of "the two" important decision-making consultation, important situation communication, and important information sharing.