China vows to further promote public legal service platforms

BEIJING -- China's Ministry of Justice has vowed to further promote public legal service platforms and let "people's mediation" play a basic role in a multi-pronged mechanism for conflict and dispute resolution, among its key tasks for judicial administration reform in 2020.

Efforts will also be made this year to improve the legal aid system, expand the coverage of legal aid, push for the rolling-out of the law on legal aid and the revision of the lawyers law, and establish a national platform for information disclosure on lawyers' integrity, the ministry said.

China utilizes "people's mediation" to resolve disputes outside judicial proceedings. There are a number of village- or neighborhood-based people's mediation committees.

Apart from "people's mediation," administrative and judicial mediation is used to handle disputes in China.