Volunteer legal aid benefits 17m Chinese

BEIJING - A volunteer legal aid campaign has benefited more than 17 million people over the past year, one of its co-organizers revealed on Monday.

In the "1+1 Volunteer Legal Aid Campaign," launched by the Ministry of Justice and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League in 2009, about 180 volunteers have handled 13,280 cases and helped solve 2,600 disputes in the past year, according to the China Legal Aid Foundation.

The campaign aims to provide legal services in areas lacking lawyers. Lawyers and law students are sent to the regions to provide assistance for a year at a time.

More than 100 Chinese counties still have no lawyers working in them. The absence has caused a bottleneck in economic and social development of these areas, said Zheng Xiaze, the foundation's secretary general, on Monday at a conference reviewing the progress of the campaign.

This year's campaign will see more than 200 volunteers sent to 123 counties across China to dispense legal advice and assistance to those in need, he said.