To fulfill the above mentioned responsibilities, the Ministry is instituted with 10 functional departments (bureaus and general office) and one political department:

1. General Office

Responsible for:
Working out strategies of development, medium and long term plans and annual priorities for justice administration and supervising their implementations; collecting and analyzing various information on justice administration and providing feed-backs; coordinating, arranging and organizing important political activities of the Ministry and check the results; drafting and reviewing general documents and reports; organizing news release of the Ministry; directing the construction of the nationwide network of communications and information technology for justice administration; reviewing and transmitting(circulating) documents and telegrams; receiving and handling complaints from people's visitations; managing documentations and archives establishment of the Ministry.

2. Bureau of Prison Administration

Responsible for:
Supervising and inspecting implementations of laws, regulations and policies on reform of offenders; making plans for the establishments and layout of prisons throughout the nation; directing executions of criminal punishments, prison management and educational reform in prisons; collecting and analyzing information on imprisonment and reform of offenders; organizing and coordinating the inter-provincial transfer of prison inmates; directing the managements of construction, equipments and finance of prisons all over the nation; managing prisons that are directly affiliated to the Ministry.

3. Bureau of Re-education-through-labour Administration

Responsible for:
Supervising and inspecting the implementations of laws, regulations and policies concerning re-education through labour; directing controls, education and mandatory treatments of persons undergoing the re-education through labour; making plans for establishment and layout of the re-education through labour facilities; directing construction, finance and equipments managements in these facilities.

4. Department of Legal Publicity

Responsible for:
Drawing up plans of national legal publicity and organizing their implementations; directing and inspecting the work of governance based on law; guiding the media coverage of legal affairs and foreign oriented legal publicity.

5. Department of the Guidance of the work of lawyers and public notaries.

Responsible for:
Directing and supervising the work of legal consultation in governmental institutions, enterprises, and non-profit institutions and the work of institutions providing legal services to the society; examining, approving and administering the branch offices of law firms from foreign countries or the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao in China (mainland);directing and supervising oversea representative offices of Chinese law firms; organizing and directing examinations(tests), appointments and registrations of public notaries; directing and regulating the establishment of public notaries offices and supervising their practice; entrusting lawyers and public notaries from the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao to undertake the notarial affairs relating to the matters of the mainland; directing local authorities of justice administration to regulate local legal services.

6. Department of the Guidance of the Grass-root Work

Responsible for:
Providing guidance for local authorities of justice administration in their work of regulating people's mediation and community corrections; coordinating and directing the construction of local justice administration offices and the work of justice administration assistants; organizing and directing the work of resettlement help and education for those released from prisons or having finished their reeducation terms.

7. Department of National Judicial Examination

Responsible for:
Elaborating and making plans, regulations and rules concerning the national judicial examination; drawing up and reviewing syllabus for the examination and reviewing and approving test papers; directing and supervising the implementation of the national judicial examination; directing theoretical researches on the judicial examination; promoting the informatization and international exchanges concerning the judicial examination; examining and conferring the Certificate of the Legal Profession Qualifications; directing legal education and higher professional education within the system of justice administration.

8. Department of Legislative Affairs

Responsible for:
Participating in the drafting of laws and regulations concerning justice administration and other legislative work with the entrustment of the National People's Congress and the State Council; organizing efforts of formulating the Ministry's rules on justice administration and other regulatory documents; directing judicial forensic services provided for the society; directing arbitrations and registrations; dealing with administrative review , lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice, and the supervision of law enforcement.

9. Department of Judicial Assistance and Foreign Affairs

Responsible for:
Participating in negotiations with other countries to sign relevant treaties of judicial assistance and checking the implementations of the treaties; organizing and participating in the UN activities in fields of crime prevention and criminal justice and conducting exchanges with the UN corresponding bodies; organizing and participating in multilateral and bilateral exchanges, technical cooperation and assistance concerning justice administration and jurisprudence; making researches on foreign judicial systems and practices; dealing with affairs involving the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao as well as the Region of Taiwan; dealing with the foreign affairs of the Ministry and its directly affiliated institutions; directing the work involving foreign affairs of departments and bureaus of justice throughout the nation and examining their requests concerning going abroad on exiting beyond territorial borders.

10. Department of Finance and Equipment

Responsible for:
Elaborating and establishing rules and regulations on finance, materials and equipment and infrastructures; examining whether the funds for the system of justice administration are properly used; managing state-owned assets and finance of the Ministry and its directly affiliated institutions; controlling guns, ammunitions, uniforms, vehicles and other materials and equipment that belong to the system of justice administration.

11. Political Department

Responsible for:
Directing capacity building efforts, awareness campaign, activities of commendation and ideological infusion among the staff of the judicial administration system; directing the design of courses in educational and training institutions for juctice administration officials; making training programmes for incumbent officials of the system of justice administration and organizing their implementations; elaborating and establishing measures of personnel management in the system of justice administration; directing personnel management in local authorities of justice administration; examining assistant officials and submitting suggestions on their appointment, removal or rotation; regulating policing work and conferring policing ranks within the system of justice administration; designing the organic structure of the Ministry, managing salary, welfare, files of personnel; regulating civil servants and personnel management in the directly affiliated institutions of the Ministry.

        In addition to the above-mentioned departments/bureaus, the Ministry of Justice also directly leads, administrates and guides the following affiliated institutions.

1. Legal Aid Center of the Ministry of Justice

The major task of the Center is to direct, supervise and coordinate the provision of legal aid services nationwide, to research on and make development strategies and policies for legal aid services, and to guarantee the coordination between legal aid services and economic and social development. At present, the Center has a staff of 24 people. There are 2,774 legal aid centers nationwide with 9,457 legal aid personnel, among whom, 4,555 are lawyers.

2. Crime Prevention Institute of the Ministry of Justice

As a professional research institution, its research activities cover crime prevention and criminal justice, criminology, criminal jurisprudence and criminal procedure law, science of criminal investigation and criminal enforcement, science of prison administration and reform through labor, international crime and criminal justice, human rights in justice administration and human rights in international justice administration. It is also responsible for publishing a theoretical journal - Research on Crimes and Reform through Labor. It provides relevant training and legal services. At present, it has established stable academic exchanges with over ten foreign countries and regions.

3. Judicial Research Institute of the Ministry of Justice

It is a comprehensive judicial research organization specializing in the study of theories of judicial administration, and the practices and theories of rule of law. It is responsible for research on important subjects of the MOJ, and research on national subjects. It edits a journal by the name of Justice in China, and conducts academic exchanges with relevant foreign institutions. It has a staff of 30, who have professional knowledge in political science, economics, sociology, and foreign language (s) respectively.

4. Institute of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice

It is responsible mainly for doing research on forensic science and technology, training on-job legal-medical experts, analysts, and other professionals, conducting forensic identification of the difficult matters in the important cases handled by local judicial bodies or investigated by local police. With more than 120 employees, it offers seven disciplines: Forensic Clinic, Judicial Psychiatry, Forensic Pathology, Medico-Legal Biochemistry, Forensic Chemistry, Criminalistics and Chemistry.

5. Central College for Judicial Officers

It is responsible for educating and training senior management personnel for prisons and re-education-through-labor services by providing university and college education as well as on-job training, rank-promotion training and correspondence training courses of prison management. In the college there is Department of Prison Science, Department of Re-education-through-labor Administration, Department of Economic Management, Department of Police Administration, and Department of Law. It provides 13 disciplines, and is equipped with a library and an educational computer center. It administrates its students in a military manner. It has established academic exchanges with more than 10 organs or colleges of foreign countries and regions.

6. Institute of Judicial Administration

It is a training and educational organization for both officials working in the judicial administration field and high-level legal services professionals. Its main task is to provide training for the directors in bureaus of justice at city and county levels as well as responsible officials in the departments of justice at the level of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. It provides training for senior lawyers and public notaries before their promotions. It organizes and provides education for obtaining certificate of legal profession. It delivers special training courses to providers of legal services and people's mediators at the grassroots level. It also offers legal training programs to the whole society. It develops related international exchanges and cooperation with foreign countries.

7. Publishing House of Legal Daily

As the only central-level large-scale and comprehensive daily newspaper in China, Legal Daily is oriented towards both domestic and foreign readers, reporting the socialist democratic and legal development in China. It is also the largest legal medium in China with the most authority and influence. It mainly reports news and information on legislation, justice and law enforcement, publicizes knowledge on law, and reflects demand of the public. In addition to Legal Daily, the Publishing House also publishes such newspaper as Legal Digest, World Journal, and Legal Morning, and magazines like Legal Person and Legality and News. It also has a website for Legal Daily, and set up China Legal Publicity website (www.legalinfo.gov.cn) as entrusted by the Ministry of Justice. It established an audio and video center as well as an all China Lawyers' Correspondence Training Center at entrustment of the MOJ.

8. Publishing House of Law

It is the biggest publishing house of law at the national level, mainly publishing laws and regulations, legal works, translation of foreign legal books, tool books of law, law textbooks, reading materials of basic legal knowledge, and books of other subjects connected with law, etc. It publishes more than 800 kinds of books annually in average and re-publishes more than 300 kinds.

9. All China Lawyers' Association

As a national social and self-disciplinary organization of lawyers, it is responsible for guaranteeing lawyers' practices, legitimate rights and interests, supervising lawyers' professional ethics, training lawyers, rewarding or punishing lawyers, and organizing international exchanges for lawyers. Lawyers' associations at all levels and all the law firms are its institutional members, and practicing lawyers are its individual members. At present, it has 31 province-level institutional members, and over 100,000 individual members.

10. China Public Notary Association

It is a nationwide institutional legal person, composed of public notaries, public notary administration personnel and other relevant professionals. Its tasks include: assisting government departments to administrate and guide the notary work across the country, guiding the work of public notary associations at all levels, protecting the legitimates rights and interests of its members, organizing its members to take part in public welfare labor, rewarding or punishing its members, providing education on professional ethics and discipline for its members, training public notaries, organizing academic seminars and exchanges of working experience, reviewing and delivering copies of notary documents related to Taiwan region, controlling watermarked paper that is specially made for public notary work, and publicizing public notary work.

11. China Prison Society

It is a national academic and social organization with the objectives of organizing theory-researching personnel and practitioners in the prison administration system to undertake prison-related theoretical research, conducting academic exchanges both at home and abroad, developing and improving a system of prison science with Chinese characteristics, and enhancing prison legal construction so as to lay a theoretical foundation for important decision making related to prison administration. Now it has 33 institutional members and over 2,000 individual members. There are more than 10 professional committees under the Association, including the Committee for Prison Law, and the Committee for the Prison Administration.

12. All China People's Mediators' Association

It is a national social association of people's mediators, responsible for organizing its members to study laws and regulations and other related subjects, publicizing people's mediation system, and conducting theoretical researches, protecting its members' legitimate rights and interests, reporting to the government the trend of disputes among the citizens, assisting the judicial administrative organs in training people's mediators. It has 90 institutional members, and 280 individual members.

13. China Legal Aid Foundation

Being an independent institutional legal person, it was approved by the State Council, registered in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and established in 1997 as a national public foundation.
Objectives: guaranteeing that all citizens enjoy equal protection by law and protecting the basic rights of all citizens endowed by law.
Major tasks and scope of activities: implementing legal aid to provide material support for the equal enjoyment of law protection of all citizens; accepting domestic and foreign donation; raising, managing and using legal aid funds; publicizing the national legal aid system to promote judicial justice; and providing counseling, training and international exchanges that are relevant to the objectives of the Foundation.

14. International Legal Cooperation Center

The purpose of the International Legal Cooperation Center is to provide excellent and efficient services so as to further strengthen the function as the "Central Authority of Judicial Assistance", of the Ministry of Justice and to promote the development of China's exchanges and with foreign countries in the legal fields. The responsibility of the center is to handle and undertake the routine and technical works and provide legal services related to the international judicial assistance and judicial foreign affairs with the authorization and trust of the Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China on the basis of the function as the "Central Authority of Judicial Assistance" that is bestowed to the Ministry of Justice by relevant international treaties and conventions.
In accordance with the authorization and trust of the Ministry of Justice, the Center mainly undertakes the following functions and responsibilities:
Receiving and deliver foreign judicial assistance request; preliminarily examine the procedures of the relevant request documents and transmit the documents to the competent authorities.
Provide translation services related to the international judicial assistance and foreign affairs.
Accept inquires and consultations with regard to the administrative affairs of international judicial assistance and provide corresponding services for the society in a proper form.
Undertake the monographic study assignments related to the judicial assistance and judicial foreign affairs and organize relevant training programs, workshops, and awareness campaigns.
Provide liaison and reception services for treaty negotiations, work visits and exploration activities related to judicial assistance and judicial foreign affairs; provide passport and visa relevant services.
Undertake research, training, liaison and reception works concerning legal exchanges and cooperation with Hong kong, Macao and Taiwan and other works entrusted by the Ministry of Justice.
Undertake relevant works entrusted by other judicial organs and related authorities.