Visiting the practice road of public lawyers： the bottleneck of low social awareness needs to be broken
□ Public lawyers have more responsibilities and missions.
□ Optimize team structure and expand legal services.
□ Make the government’s decision-making in accordance with the law legally guaranteed.
□ Improve the independent and targeted evaluation system
□ Our reporter Cai Changchun
The vehicle purchase tax law, which came into effect on July 1st this year, abolished the minimum taxable value requirement, and made it clear that taxable value, where taxpayers buy taxable vehicles for their own use, is the total price actually paid to the seller, excluding the value-added tax.
As a public lawyer, Liu Hongxia, a public lawyer of Hebei Provincial Taxation Bureau in State Taxation Administration of The People’s Republic of China, actively made suggestions on the construction of tax rule of law. She once represented the tax authorities in a dispute case of vehicle purchase tax. Through research, it was found that the tax dispute caused by the application of taxable value with the lowest vehicle purchase tax was not a case. Therefore, the initiative to this issue to the higher tax authorities for effective feedback.
At present, China’s lawyer industry has developed by leaps and bounds, and the development of social lawyers has attracted much attention, while public lawyers have been little known because of their special practice characteristics. What are the differences between public lawyers and social lawyers? What is the current development status of this industry? "Legal Daily" recently interviewed the heads of lawyer management departments and public lawyers in Hebei, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places, and listened to their stories about the development of the public lawyer industry.
Public lawyers are above everything else.
"The biggest difference between public lawyers and social lawyers is that public lawyers have one more identity, so they have one more responsibility and mission." Liu Hongxia told reporters.
In 2013, Hebei’s tax system began to implement the public lawyer system. It has been seven years since then, and now there are 211 public lawyers in the province’s tax system. Liu Hongxia is one of the first batch.
Liu Hongxia’s "one more identity" refers to the fact that public lawyers perform public duties as public officials while providing legal services as lawyers.
In the eyes of Lai Min-hui, a public lawyer of Guangzhou Public Law Firm, Guangdong Province, the biggest difference between public lawyers and social lawyers lies in the word "public". "Putting public interests first, serving the public wholeheartedly" is a prominent feature of public lawyers, and it is also determined by the dual identity of public lawyers as both public officials and practicing lawyers.
"This means that public lawyers should not only devote themselves to the application of the law, but also be good at examining departmental behaviors through case handling, providing opinions and suggestions for standardizing departmental behaviors and preventing legal risks, and promoting departments to accelerate the process of rule of law through endogenous change." Liu Hongxia explained.
So, what are the specific duties of public lawyers?
Yang Yong, deputy director of the Lawyers Work Management Office of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Justice, told the reporter that according to relevant regulations, public lawyers can be entrusted or assigned by their units to provide legal advice for their units or entrusted units to discuss and decide major issues; Participate in the drafting and demonstration of draft laws, regulations and rules, draft inner-party regulations and normative documents; Participate in cooperation project negotiation, external bidding, government procurement and other affairs, and draft, modify and review important legal documents or contracts and agreements. In addition, you can also participate in the reception of letters and visits, the mediation of contradictions, the resolution of cases involving law and litigation, the handling of emergencies, the disclosure of government information, and state compensation; Participate in administrative adjudication, administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation; Participate in the legal review of major law enforcement decisions such as administrative punishment; Participate in the publicity and education of law popularization; Handling legal affairs such as litigation, mediation and arbitration in civil cases; To undertake other legal affairs entrusted or assigned by the unit.
At present, the development of public lawyers in China is improving all the way, which can be seen from the relevant data of some provinces.
As of November 1 this year, there were 4,465 public lawyers in Guangdong, widely distributed in party and government organs and people’s organizations; At present, Jiangsu has set up 1699 public lawyers’ management institutions and developed 3419 public lawyers.
"There are 1,835 public lawyers in Hebei, covering more than 80 departments including public security, industry and commerce, trade unions, construction, planning, finance and taxation, and environmental protection." Gai Liang, deputy director of the Lawyers Work Management Office of the Justice Department of Hebei Province, told the reporter.
The value of work is highly recognized.
Liu Hongxia’s efforts in promoting the process of tax legalization have been highly praised by Hebei national tax system.
"Public lawyers have played an increasingly prominent role in promoting the construction of tax administration according to law, helping to implement tax reduction and fee reduction policies, and optimizing tax service measures, which has effectively promoted comprehensive administration according to law." Li Yasong, director of the Policy and Regulation Division of Hebei Provincial Taxation Bureau in State Taxation Administration of The People’s Republic of China, told reporters.
According to Li Yasong, since the establishment of the relevant system of public lawyers in Hebei tax system in 2013, public lawyers have participated in more than 1,000 cases such as administrative reconsideration, administrative litigation and major case trials, and solved a large number of tax-related disputes in accordance with the actual situation of the cases; Participated in the drafting, demonstration, legality and compliance review of draft laws, regulations, regulatory documents and other draft systems, fully protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the counterpart.
"As a new professional legal service force, public lawyers have optimized the structure of lawyers and expanded the scope of legal services, which is a useful supplement to China’s lawyers." Zhong Hualin, a staff member of the Lawyers Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Justice, said.
In Zhong Hualin’s view, public lawyers are thoughtful and effective think tanks around leaders, which provide a strong legal guarantee for party and government leaders to make decisions according to law, and are of milestone significance for comprehensively improving the level of administration by law of government agencies in the new era and deepening the process of rule of law.
According to Zhong Hualin, in the first half of 2019, public lawyers from all over Jiangsu provided 997 legal opinions on major government decisions and major administrative actions, participated in the drafting and argumentation of 1,224 normative documents, assisted in the drafting and revision of 1,056 important legal documents in cooperation project negotiations, and handled 2,077 cases of administrative reconsideration, administrative litigation and administrative mediation, which effectively played an important role in promoting administration according to law, maintaining social stability and promoting the construction of a government ruled by law.
"In 2018, Hebei public lawyers handled more than 12,500 legal affairs." Gailiang told reporters that practice has proved that public lawyers can give full play to their professional advantages of being familiar with the law and their professional advantages of being familiar with the business situation of their own units, better complete the review and drafting of rules and regulatory documents of the government, departments and enterprises, actively and effectively resolve disputes by participating in administrative reconsideration, litigation and non-litigation legal affairs, arbitration and other work, and properly handle the dispute crisis, which plays a significant and positive role in promoting the overall rule of law and the construction of a government ruled by law.
The bottleneck of development still needs to be broken
Nowadays, the public lawyer industry presents a good development trend, but there are also some problems that hinder the healthy development of the industry.
Lai Min-hui noted that in recent years, although the total number of public lawyers is on the rise, there is a general lack of understanding of the responsibilities and functions of public lawyers in society. Compared with social lawyers, especially external legal advisers, the lack of independent and targeted evaluation and reward system in the system also has a certain impact on the long-term development of the public lawyer industry.
"Because public lawyers need to have high legal literacy and professional literacy, it is urgent to establish a scientific and systematic training and use mechanism to solve the contradiction between business needs and lack of ability." Liu Hongxia added.
In addition to public lawyers themselves, industry managers have also noticed some existing problems.
Gai Liang told reporters that compared with social lawyers, the current social awareness of public lawyers is still relatively low, which will undoubtedly have some impact on their sense of honor in practice. In addition, the participation of public lawyers in the legal affairs of their units is still at a shallow level, and their role needs to be further played. The outstanding performance is that public lawyers participate in more specific legal affairs such as administrative litigation, administrative reconsideration and government information disclosure, and provide less legal advice for major decisions and major issues.
"At present, some units have not formulated a good assessment method for how public lawyers perform their duties, which affects the role of public lawyers to some extent." Zhong Hualin told reporters.
Strengthen the top-level design and enhance the degree of attention; Carry out business training to improve comprehensive ability; Strengthen supervision and assessment, improve incentive mechanism … … Everyone has made suggestions on how to better break through the bottleneck and promote the healthy and long-term development of the public lawyer industry.
On September 1, this year, the "Implementation Measures of Guangdong Provincial Department of Justice on the Management of Public Lawyers" was officially implemented. Yang Yong told reporters that the measures further refine the application scope, assessment and public law firm regulations of Guangdong public lawyer certificate, clarify the legal status, rights and obligations of public lawyers, rationalize the management system and mechanism of public lawyers, and effectively promote the healthy and lasting development of the public lawyer industry.
Guangdong’s exploration is not a case. Hebei, Jiangsu and other places also attach great importance to the development of the public lawyer industry.
"I believe that in the future, the public lawyer industry will usher in greater development space and contribute more wisdom to the continuous advancement of the rule of law in China." The interviewed public lawyers, lawyers’ managers, government department managers and experts and scholars are convinced of this.