Over 20,000 lawyers recruited as govt advisers

BEIJING - A senior justice official said on Sunday that 23,500 lawyers have been recruited as legal advisers for governments at all levels in China, as part of an effort to facilitate the construction of a law-based government.

Vice-Minister of Justice Zhao Dacheng made the remarks at a symposium on "lawyers serving the construction of a law-based government" in Beijing, adding that the figure accounted for more than one tenth of the country's total lawyers.

Of them, more than 1,300 were employed by provincial-level governments, 8,100 were recruited by city-level and 14,000 by prefecture-level governmental organs, according to Zhao.

The lawyers were previously employed as governmental agents to participate in lawsuit, but now they are tasked with offering legal advice for the governments in dealing with legal affairs, Zhao said.

They will also take part in the drafting and amending of governmental normative documents, negotiations on foreign-related projects as well as restructure of State-owned enterprises, the official said.

The lawyers have provided governments at all levels with more than 510,000 consulting services over the past three years, said Zhou Yuansheng, secretary-general of the All China Lawyers Association at the gathering.

Zhou added that the lawyers have created nearly 90,000 legal opinions for governmental organs during the period.