LHASA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The number of judges and their backups that can speak Chinese and Tibetan has reached 537 in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, according to the regional Higher People's Court.

Legal awareness is rising among local farmers and herdsmen, so legal cases in Tibet's remote areas have been increasing. As most farmers and herdsmen have low levels of speaking proper mandarin, demand for such bilingual judges is high.

In recent years, the regional Higher People's Court has enhanced training efforts for bilingual judges.

"We held 487 training sessions in 2018, with 6,389 people trained," said Sodar, the court's chief judge.

Last year, Tibet recorded 30,577 legal cases, with 27,348 settled, Sodar said.