法律援助的中国模式及其改革

政府主导下的“政府责任、律师义务、社会参与”构成了法律援助的中国模式，推动了我国法律援助从无到有的跨越式发展。然而，实证研究显示，该模式还存在明显不足：单纯依靠财政投入增加无法突破公共服务的成本限制；法律服务市场逐利性与法律援助公益性的矛盾使律师免费法律服务的资源输入方式具有不可持续性；政府对法律援助大包大揽，导致了法律援助行政效率低下、供给结构失衡、社会参与不足。以上缺陷使我国的法律援助始终无法摆脱供需矛盾的约束：供给无法满足需求，且供给质量不高。围绕“不断扩大法律援助范围，提高援助质量”的改革目标，应当将法律援助的政府责任转变为国家责任，构建政府、市场、社会多元协同治理的法律援助新模式。

A Chinese Model of Legal Aid and Its Reform

″Responsibility of the government, duty of the lawyer, and participation of civilians″ under the guidance of the government constitute the Chinese model of legal aid. Due to scarcity of resources and inadequate investment, the government has used its strong administrative power to increase financial input. At the same time, it confers mandatory obligations to lawyers and other legal workers to enlist free legal services and social donations to make up for the shortage of financial resources. This model has a salient administrative feature, and the problems caused by this kind of arbitrary political model are beginning to surface. The empirical research shows that there are several problems with the supply of legal aid in China: limited increment and the unbalanced supply structure. Meanwhile, the legal demand and the potential demand for legal aid have been on the rise. The regression analysis shows that, in the supply-demand relationship of the legal aid in China, the caseload growth of legal aid is closely related to the increase of financial investment. This relationship shows that in the future, the contradictions between supply and demand will aggravate if the growth of legal-aid funds is limited and the demand for legal aid is expanded. Insufficient motivation for reform is an inherent defect in the Chinese model of legal aid. Firstly, the resource input mode is not sustainable. A simple reliance on increased financial input cannot break through the limit of the cost of public services, and the profit-seeking nature of the legal service market determines the unsustainability of free legal aid. Secondly, there are defects in the operation mode of the administrative organization. For example, the ambiguity of government functions results in low administrative efficiency; the orientation of government responsibilities leads to the imbalance of the structure of legal aid cases; and the autonomous function of voluntary civic participation is suppressed. Based on the empirical study and analysis, the reform of the legal aid model in our country should aim at enlarging supply capacity and improving supply quality in constructing a government-led, collaborative government-market-society governance model. Firstly, it is necessary to reorient the main body of responsibility in legal aid to shift the responsibility from the government to the state. Secondly, it is necessary to establish a diversified supply mechanism and form a three-in-one supply mechanism of the marketization, administration and socialization of legal aid. Finally, it is hoped that a collaborative governance model will be constructed to achieve the dynamic balance between social total supply and aggregate demand of legal aid. The ternary state governance structure of the government, the market and the public is becoming clearer. Within the overall framework of state governance, the state responsibility of legal aid needs to be defined and a collaborative governance model of legal aid will be constructed. This model will give play to the government's macroscopic management and supervision, market efficiency, the competition mechanism, social diversity and added value. Under the background of advancing the state governance system and the modernization of governance ability, the multi-collaborative governance model of legal aid should fit into a proper category and play a more important role in the construction of the state legal system.