Prosecutors at all levels have embraced public interest litigation

In June last year, China's top legislature passed amendments to the civil and administrative procedure laws that allowed prosecutors at all levels to file civil and administrative lawsuits in cases concerning environment and resources protection, food and drug safety, state assets preservation and the transfer of land rights.

Before the amendments took effect in July last year, a two-year pilot program had been underway in 13 provincial divisions.

There were 9,053 public interest lawsuits handled during the pilot period, compared with 99,441 between July last year and this November. Cases related to food and drug safety accounted for 33.42 percent of public interest cases handled this year, compared with less than 1 percent during the pilot period, Hu said.

Since the beginning of the year, prosecutors had established strong leadership, launched special supervision campaigns centering on food safety, including the use of pesticides and false advertising, and conducted on-site inspections that reaped fruitful results, he said.

Hu said public interest litigation had been covered by all prosecutors in the country by Nov 23, when the procuratorate in Sansha Islands, Hainan province, filed a pre-litigation suggestion to local authorities.

However, he said, there were still some problems to solve. For example, cyberspace and production safety were beginning to pose increasing threats to public interest, but had yet been listed on the public interest litigation agenda.

Zhang said some prosecutors had taken steps toward covering such cases.

"We will report the problems to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in the hope to gradually push forward judicial interpretation," Hu said, "and we believe the scope of public interest litigation will gradually expand as various conditions mature."