The pre-operation in the past two years witnessed the increasing clicking frequency on this site, from around 10,000 times up to over 40,000 times per day. Up to the beginning of December 2003, the total clicking frequency of this site is more than 17,000,000 times. Over 30,000 questions on legal consultation are received. 2546 consultation e-mails are replied. 26 person-times are face-to-face reception. Among the above numbers, the column“I-can-answer-anything-on-law Doctor of Laws”replied 1638 e-mails and conciliated 15 disputes through non-litigation approaches; the column“Face to Face Online”invited around a hundred lawyers and well-known legal experts for 96 times; the column“Interview”held approximately 20 interviews to 12 government leaders who were present to answer the frequently asked questions raised by the citizens; and the BBS part received averagely 20 legal questions every day which were answered by the online legal services group composed of 36 professional lawyers.

Accurately Positioning & Serving Society

The east124.com positions itself as a comprehensive portal website legal affairs that lays stress on democracy and legal system building, makes itself close up to society and life, reflects the progress of administering a country according to law, safeguards the stability of the grassroots, and provides all-sided legal services to common people ever since the date it was born.

During the period fighting against SARS, the site produced a special and made a topic program which was jointly plotted with the municipal bar association and invited famous lawyers talking on prevention and cure of SARS according to law. There are four topics in that program, i.e. the citizens’legal responsibilities during the period of SARS prevention and cure, the new challenge to the Law of Prevention and Cure of Infectious Diseases by efforts of SARS prevention and cure, the safeguarding of the labour relationship during the period of SARS prevention and cure, and the safeguarding of the contractual relationship during the period of SARS prevention and cure.

An obvious success achieved by this cite is that it makes the relationship between the functional departments of Shanghai municipal government and common citizens more close, and realizes the“zero distance”contact of citizens with the government officials by means of network, such a new-born communicating way. 12 department officials from Shanghai Bureau of Civil Affairs, the municipal Federation for the Handicapped, the municipal Federation of Trade Unions, the municipal Women’s Federation and Shanghai Bureau of Public Security logged in the site early or late to hear complaints by citizens, get known the public opinions, answered questions on marriage registration, safeguarding rights of the disabled persons and women, and issues closely related to common people’s life, and solved problems online.

In the morning of June 24th, 2003, Jiang Xianfa, Vice Secretary General of Shanghai Municipal Committee of The CPC and Politics And Law Committee, Zhang Shenghua, Deputy Director of Shanghai Bureau of Public Security and director of the municipal Drug Prohibition Office, were invited as guests to the East124 to communicate with citizens. In the online chatting room, citizens showed their great fervor to this communication and raised tidewatered consultation and questions. Two officials paid particular attention to cases reported by two netizens. One netizen reported that prostitution, gambling and drug dealing were commonly seen in a market near Tian Shan Lu, Shanghai and negatively affected the public security of that region. The other case was reported by a girl student at the third grade of the senior high school. According to her report, her English teacher raped her by excuse of tutoring her at her home. That injured girl had no idea to try that impudent and wicked teacher by force of judicial weapon. Those two cases were solved promptly later by the relevant authorities, which satisfied the people involved and other citizens.

Rich Content & Closing up to Life

The east124.com which presents a entirely new appearance adds some new columns such as“Legal Culture”and“Test on Legal Knowledge”and reforms and innovates the original columns for the purpose if making the site more sense of humanization and closing up to the citizens’common life. The columns such as“Legal News”,“Case Archive”and“Today’s Law”are updated every day 30 times. It mirrors the progress of law promulgation in society and administering the city in accordance with law from the 6 aspects covering legislation, law enforcement and administration of justice, and makes citizens receive the latest and fastest legal information on Shanghai and the well-chosen legal news from Shanghai and other six eastern China’s provinces as well.

A series of legal knowledge competition, photography contest on legal affairs, legal animation and comics contest and other competitions are launched by this site recently. It also hosts or sponsors 8 topic activities including“The First Round of National Legal Animation and Comics Contest”and“Online Legal Knowledge Competition”. Participants are very enthusiastic to those activities. For such interactive aspect of this site, east124.com is going to organize a series of topic activities including The Shanghai Telecom Cup Monthly Contest on Netizens’Legal Knowledge, The Second Round of Photography Contest On Legal Affairs, and Legal Stories Collecting and Telling Contest in 2004 with the goal making more citizens participate those interactive activities.

In addition, the east124.com adds video and audio contents links onto its home page. Those video and audio contents use various network expressing methods to re-broadcast and publicize the legal information produced by the different government departments and columns. So long as the netizens click their cursor mice, they can instantly view case report, court trial focus and other programs directly.

Orderly Operation & Ongoing Expansion

The development and operation of the east124.com rely on the eastday.com for the purpose of advancing itself by support of the great advantages of such a well known website. The eastday.com holds a complete set of normative working crew to collect, edit, review and broadcast information and powerful technical personnel. The initial one-off investment to the east124.com is only RMB 100,000 with RMB 50,000 for regular maintenance every year. If it relies totally on its own investment and maintenance without thousands even millions renminbi of funds at the beginning of its operation, it is hard to achieve the current operation effect.

This site adopts the policy of revising itself ceaselessly. To meet the relevant requirements, one total revision shall be conducted and 3 to 4 times of adjustment to the small content on the page shall be made every year. The total revision this time makes people find everything new and fresh in this site.

In the past, there were numerous legal websites on the Internet but most of them had no effects. Because the east124.com is advocated by the municipal authority and supported by great economic and human resources, it shows the overwhelming momentum since its launch and causes much impact to Shanghai citizens and legal profession. Due to the domino effect, many mid-scaled and small legal websites and law firms which are eager to carry out online consultation come to negotiation for cooperation, which enhances the strength of the east124.com. The joint effort to host the east124.com by Shanghai and other six eastern China’s provinces this time is based upon the concept that it would be better to produce a big site name than to operate 7 small sites respectively.

The focus of the online law promulgation is on over 60,000,000 citizens all over the country, especially those teenagers. Accordingly, to attract more common citizens to the Internet for legal assistance and education of legal culture as well as enhance their legal quality through such a network media has been the common goal for the network legal propaganda. As the comprehensive law promulgation website heading Shanghai, radiating eastern China, and affecting the whole nation, the east124.com meets the actual requirements by such a goal.