China Announces Update on Public Interest Litigation, Environmental Cases

摘要

China's top judicial prosecution and investigation authority said local procuratorial departments have been involved in several environment-related lawsuits since July, when a pilot program aimed at expediting such issues began. The Jan. 7 announcement came as part of a six-month update on the pilot program, which is meant to encourage pretrial mediation before the filing of public interest lawsuits. Local authorities under the Supreme People's Procu-ratorate (SPP), the country's top judicial prosecution and investigation authority, were involved in 510 pre-trial investigations into potential cases leading to public interest lawsuits since the body launched a pilot program in July that allows it to push pretrial mediation before cases get to court, the SPP announced (38 INER 890, 7/15/15) Of those cases, 313 were related to possible environmental public interest suits, and the SPP detailed five successful environmental cases where it became directly involved as the plaintiff- three of which were cases launched at the local level against local environmental protection bureaus.