The Vice Minister of Justice, Zhao Dacheng, revealed the news that 23,500 lawyers have been enrolled as government legal advisers at a Beijing symposium on 'lawyers serving the construction of a law-based government'. Of these, according to Xinhua Net, about 14,000 have been recruited by prefecture-level bodies, about 8,100 by city-level organisations and another 1,300 or so at provincial level. Previously, the lawyers had advised government agents on litigation matters.
Drafting documents
Mr Zhao specified that they will be involved now in the drafting and amending of government documents, on the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and on negotiations on foreign-related projects. Another speaker, Zhou Yuansheng, secretary-general of the All China Lawyers Association, told the symposium that, in the last three years, lawyers have given 90,000 legal opinions to government bodies and over 510,000 pieces of consultancy to the various arms of the state.
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