Legal aid programs have been set up in some Chinese areas since the early 1990s to make it possible for poor people to get access to lawyers and representation. Legal aid involves very recent developments and evolution in the Chinese legal system that are of great importance to the understanding of Chinese society in transition. In the process of making transition to a market economy, the PRC has experienced a tremendous increase in lawsuits and hence the need for prefessional services. With their rapid increase in numbers, the PRC legal professionals are playing a getting-more-active role in the Chinese society. By offering free legal services to the poor, they try to project a positive social image in the PRC. Legal aid also represents the PRC authority's effort to attain social stabi...[ Read more ]

Legal aid programs have been set up in some Chinese areas since the early 1990s to make it possible for poor people to get access to lawyers and representation. Legal aid involves very recent developments and evolution in the Chinese legal system that are of great importance to the understanding of Chinese society in transition. In the process of making transition to a market economy, the PRC has experienced a tremendous increase in lawsuits and hence the need for prefessional services. With their rapid increase in numbers, the PRC legal professionals are playing a getting-more-active role in the Chinese society. By offering free legal services to the poor, they try to project a positive social image in the PRC. Legal aid also represents the PRC authority's effort to attain social stability and expand human rights. Legal aid proposals reflect the authority's consideration of the role that law and lawyers might play in maintaining social stability and burnishing its human rights record.

Besides exploring the dynamics of the PRC legal aid practices, the thesis surveys the legal aid programs in Hunan Province and five cities, namely Beijing, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shanghai and Wuhan, and discusses major challenges to the PRC legal profession and government authorities when implementing legal aid schemes. Based on survey results, the author prosposes a legal aid framework. It is concluded that the legal profession will project a positive social image and thus form an increasingly influential group in the PRC by getting involved in legal aid services to the poor people, and legal aid schemes will cover a variety of cases that affect the quotidian rights of ordinary people, and their implications for human rights should in no way be underplayed.