Vice-Minister of Justice Duan Zhengkun said that since...

Vice-Minister of Justice Duan Zhengkun said that since China introduced its legal aid system in late 1996, 400,000 disadvantaged people, have benefited from the government-funded programmes. According to the vice-minister, the intended beneficiaries are mainly criminal defendants who are likely to be sentenced to death but cannot afford a lawyer, the handicapped, minors, the elderly and other people in economic difficulty who are in need of legal counsel, including foreigners and stateless persons who stand trial in China.