Lao Cai: Ensuring citizens' access to justice

Given its characteristics as a mountainous province with a population largely comprising ethnic minorities, Lao Cai has consistently identified legal aid as a key task in recent years, contributing to ensuring citizens’ access to justice, especially for vulnerable groups.

Right after the Law on Legal Aid 2017 came into effect, the Provincial People’s Committee issued a detailed implementation plan, assigning the Department of Justice to act as the focal point for advising, organising, guiding agencies, units and grassroots authorities in carrying out the work.

Legal dissemination and communication have been deployed widely through diverse forms, including training sessions, thematic conferences, mobile communication activities, and radio and television broadcasts in both the national language and ethnic minority languages.

In 2025 alone, the province organised four specialised training conferences, helping grassroots officials improve their coordination, communication and guidance skills for supporting local residents in accessing legal aid services.

From 2018 to 30 September 2025, the Provincial State Legal Aid Centre received and handled more than 11,000 cases, over half of which involved participation in legal proceedings, thereby helping citizens safeguard their lawful rights and interests before the law.

The number of cases has increased significantly year by year, demonstrating the substantive effectiveness of the policy: while there were 479 cases in 2018, the figure reached 867 in 2024, and 608 cases in the first nine months of 2025.

Alongside these efforts, mobile legal counselling and dissemination activities, as well as grassroots communication, have been maintained regularly, attracting tens of thousands of participants. Legal aid information boards have been installed at 100% of commune-level People’s Committee and police offices, helping bring the law closer to the people in a way that is accessible and easy to understand.

After the merger of the two provincial Legal Aid Centres of Lao Cai and former Yen Bai, the reorganised apparatus has been streamlined and strengthened, operating effectively with 32 legal aid providers and five regional branches. This restructuring has expanded service coverage, increased operational proactiveness, and ensured that all citizens - including those in remote and mountainous areas - can access free legal services when needed. The branches maintain close cooperation with the police, courts, procuracies, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and mass organisations, thereby contributing to social justice at the grassroots level.

Along with organisational consolidation, digital transformation has been strongly promoted. All legal aid cases are updated on the Ministry of Justice’s electronic management system; outgoing and incoming documents are digitally signed and stored online, making management more transparent, systematic and convenient for monitoring case quality.

However, legal aid activities still face several challenges due to the characteristics of the mountainous terrain: scattered population, difficult transportation, limited awareness of the right to legal aid among some residents - especially ethnic minorities; a limited number of participating lawyers; and complex administrative procedures related to case documentation and payment.

In response to these challenges, representatives of the Lao Cai Department of Justice noted that the Department has proposed various solutions to innovate and enhance the effectiveness of legal aid activities. These include strengthening the leadership of Party committees and authorities, considering legal aid as a criterion for assessing “law-accessible communes”; expanding the groups eligible for legal aid such as near-poor households, newly escaped-from-poverty households, and individuals facing sudden hardship; promoting communication in ethnic minority languages; supplementing regulations on additional forms of legal aid such as mediation and court-based dialogue; and simplifying procedures to attract lawyers and social organisations to participate.

Through a model that is increasingly professional, effective and humane, legal aid activities are contributing to reinforcing public trust in justice, affirming the humane and progressive nature of the socialist rule-of-law State of Viet Nam - where every citizen, regardless of location, has the right to be protected fairly and equally before the law.