A barefoot lawyer (Chinese: 赤脚律师 pinyin: chìjiǎo lǜshī) is a self-taught legal activist in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Many barefoot lawyers are peasants who have taught themselves enough law to file civil complaints, engage in litigation, and educate fellow citizens about their rights.Melinda Liu
"Barefoot lawyers"
Newsweek, 4 March 2002. The term is a variation of the "

barefoot doctor Barefoot doctors () were healthcare providers who underwent basic medical training and worked in rural villages in China. They included farmers, folk healers, rural healthcare providers, and recent middle or secondary school graduates who receiv ...

"—farmers with minimal formal training who nonetheless provided essential medical services in rural China during the Mao era. Barefoot lawyers provide free legal services, and in many instances take on controversial or politically sensitive cases—such as tackling corruption by local authorities—that more established legal professionals may be reluctant to pursue. Notable examples of barefoot lawyers include the blind self-taught activist

Chen Guangcheng Chen Guangcheng (born November 12, 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who has worked on human rights issues in rural areas of the People's Republic of China. Blind from an early age and self-taught in the law, Chen is frequently descr ...

, and Guo Feixiong.

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

Walking on Thin Ice
28 April 2008.

Background

Since the legal reforms of the late 1970s and 1980s, the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

has moved to embrace the language of the

rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...

and establish a modern

court system A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordanc ...

. In the process, it has enacted thousands of new laws and regulations, and embarked on campaigns to publicize the idea that citizens have protection under the law. As China's leadership became cognizant of the importance of the legal system and legal profession to advance economic development, training for lawyers dramatically increased. From 1986 to 1992, the number of lawyers in the country more than doubled from 21,500 to 45,000, and by 2008 had reached 143,000. Despite the meteoric growth in the legal profession in China since the 1980s, many rural counties in China have a severe shortage of legal professionals; a 2004 report by China's

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

noted that 200 counties did not have a single lawyer. This has given rise to several distinct classes of legal workers and activists with varying qualifications who step in to meet the demand for legal professionals and advisors. While licensed lawyers and the less qualified "legal workers" tend to have established ties to authorities and local courts, barefoot lawyers are independent actors.Yves Dezalay
Lawyers and the Rule of Law in an Era of Globalization
(Routledge, 2011). Moreover, unlike most lawyers who gravitate to urban centers, barefoot lawyers tend to be based in rural areas where citizens have limited access to justice. Although they lack the training and professionalism of lawyers, they serve an irreplaceable function of providing "convenient, approachable, and free services" without political constraints, according to You-Tien Hsing and Ching Kwan Lee.You-Tien Hsing and Ching Kwan Lee
Reclaiming Chinese Society: The New Social Activism
(Routledge, 2009).

Training

Barefoot lawyers are distinguished from qualified lawyers in that they are often completely self-taught, lack formal training in the legal profession, and are not accredited to practice law. They are also distinct from "legal workers," who are required only to possess high school education plus a six-month legal training program. Although they lack legal credentials and formal legal training, barefoot lawyers tend to have a higher level of education and experience than most rural citizens. The proliferation of barefoot lawyers in China is due, in part, to a provision in Chinese law which allows parties to represent themselves or select their own, unpaid representatives to appear in court on their behalf; the chosen representatives do not need to be licensed lawyers.Margaret Y. K. Woo, Mary E. Gallagher
''Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China''
(Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Work

Barefoot lawyers are known for taking on controversial or politically sensitive cases, such as tackling illegal land grabs, corruption and abuse of power, or environmental disputes. In many instances, more legitimate legal workers and lawyers are unwilling to accept these cases, as doing so can result in reprisals. Several barefoot lawyers identify closely with the

Weiquan The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts, and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement, which began in the early ...

(rights defending) movement. Among the notable cases taken on by Weiquan lawyers include

's effort in 2000 to mobilize 79 villages in his native

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

Province to petition against a paper mill that had been polluting a river, killing wildlife and ruining crops. The effort was successful, and resulted in the suspension of the paper mill. Chen later earned international recognition for initiating a class-action lawsuit against the staff of a family planning clinic in Shandong province that allegedly forced thousands of people to undergo sterilization or to abort pregnancies. Another case, publicized in ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'', involved barefoot lawyers petitioning authorities to provide compensation to villagers who had been beaten by authorities over a tax dispute. In addition to litigating cases in court, barefoot lawyers perform a number of other services, such as organizing citizens to petition authorities. A survey in rural

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province found that, between 2001 and 2004, more cases were handled by barefoot lawyers than by licensed lawyers. Across China, barefoot lawyers and "legal workers" provide more legal services and draft more legal documents than licensed lawyers, and in some areas litigate more civil cases than lawyers.

Reception

Scholars of Chinese law and society have described barefoot lawyers as providing legal services and advice that are largely irreplaceable by lawyers and legal workers; in particular, they provide free access to justice in rural areas, and take on administrative cases and politically sensitive cases that many other legal professionals are unwilling to pursue. However, barefoot lawyers have attracted some scorn from licensed lawyers. Urban areas often experience a surplus of licensed lawyers, and many have lobbied to impose more restrictions on the activities of legal workers and barefoot lawyers to reduce market competition. Although alternative legal service providers such as legal workers and barefoot lawyers were at one time encouraged in rural areas to satisfy unmet demand, in recent years they have come under increased control and scrutiny by authorities. Due to the nature of cases barefoot lawyers sometimes take on—which include challenging official corruption, organizing against abuses of power, or defending victims of forced eviction—they are sometimes met with punitive reprisals by authorities. The barefoot lawyer Guo Feixiong was sentenced to five years in prison in 2007 in what was characterized as a "trial marked with serious procedural irregularities." Family members reported that Guo was tortured in custody, deprived of sleep, and shocked with electric batons. Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to over four years in prison after he sought to defend victims of forced sterilization and abortion; following his release, he remained under house arrest.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Chinese law + Rural society

Background

Training

Work

Reception

See also

Further reading

References