Legal Aid: Protecting the Legitimate Interests of the Poor

(Chinhphu.vn) - Legal aid activities play an important role in protecting the legitimate interests of people, especially the poor and vulnerable groups in society. Thereby, helping people raise awareness, comply with the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, eliminate hunger, reduce poverty, and ensure social justice.

A communication session on legal support for people - Photo: VGP/BP

Since the legal aid system (LASS) was established (1997) up to now, hundreds of thousands of poor people have enjoyed free LASS services through many forms such as: receiving legal advice, having LASS practitioners participate in litigation, and being represented outside of litigation to protect their legitimate rights and interests;

In addition, participating in grassroots communication sessions to guide policies and laws related to people's lives (land law, insurance law, labor law, social security law, etc.), being provided with legal brochures, handbooks on legal aid requests, etc.

Through legal aid, people with legal aid have their legitimate rights and interests protected, contributing to ensuring human rights, civil rights, the right to fairness in access to law, access to justice, and fairness in litigation and adjudication.

With the results and contributions that TGPL has achieved in the past time, TGPL has been recognized by the Party and State and identified TGPL as one of the policies to implement 03 National Target Programs: National target program on socio -economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the period 2021-2030, phase I: from 2021 to 2025, National target program on sustainable poverty reduction for the period 2021-2025 and National target program on new rural construction for the period 2021-2025.

With the attention of the Party, State, Ministries, branches and localities, legal aid work for the poor and disadvantaged people has been deployed synchronously and uniformly nationwide, focusing on activities that directly support the poor and disadvantaged people such as: implementing legal aid cases; communicating about legal aid at the grassroots level; improving the capacity of legal aid implementers and participants...

Typically, in Thanh Hoa province, every year, the Provincial State Legal Aid Center carries out legal aid activities for vulnerable groups, the poor, and people in difficult circumstances; strengthens communication activities, sets up a hotline on legal aid, widely notifies the People's Committees at the commune level, relevant agencies and organizations, and assigns people to directly receive and process information. The Center has provided information boards on legal aid posted at the People's Committees at the commune level, in particularly difficult villages and hamlets, and at the headquarters of the prosecution agency.

Along with that, the center organizes legal communication campaigns in places considered "lowlands" in terms of legal access in the province.

In communication about legal aid, officers of the State Legal Aid Center go to households, directly receive questions, and resolve people's practical problems related to life, activities, marriage, family, land disputes, etc. Communication activities at the grassroots level are carried out in the following forms: Propaganda in villages, hamlets, markets, and community cultural activities.

The propaganda content is focused on legal education by facilitators, specialists and collaborators in villages and hamlets, implementing the policies and regimes that are enjoyed; helping people know about the right to free legal aid.

It can be seen that for the poor and ethnic minorities, people's awareness, especially awareness of the law, is still very limited. Violations of the law due to lack of legal knowledge still occur in many areas such as: land, forestry, criminal, civil, marriage and family... In some places, people lack information about the law, many people do not know about their right to legal aid or are still afraid to approach legal aid...

Therefore, communication and legal consultancy work is very meaningful, helping people improve their understanding of the law, thereby actively complying with regulations and contributing to local activities.

Bich Phuong

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/tro-giup-phap-ly-bao-ve-loi-ich-hop-phap-cua-nguoi-ngheo-102251209150508872.htm