Public interest lawsuits clean up bad governance

From waste to court

A turning point came in December 2024, when prosecutors in Yangzhou's Jiangdu district received a tip-off from local water conservancy officials. Because the original illegal dumpers could not be identified, prosecutors turned their attention to the administrative bodies duty-bound to keep the area safe: the Jiangdu district urban management bureau and the Xiannyu township government.

After informal consultation yielded no results, prosecutors issued formal legal notices to the two bodies demanding action. But when investigators returned to inspect the site after the deadline, they uncovered a classic superficial fix. Rather than removing the hazards, officials had simply buried the 3,000 tons of waste beneath a thin layer of topsoil.

The procuratorate then filed an administrative public interest lawsuit against the two bodies. During court proceedings, the urban management bureau commissioned a third party to dispose of the waste, while the township government helped coordinate the work. Environmental testing later showed that the soil met national standards.

Yet, even after the trash was gone, prosecutors refused to drop the case. Rather than accepting the belated cleanup as a resolution, they asked the judge to issue a formal ruling declaring that both government bodies had acted unlawfully by failing to perform their duties in time. The township argued it lacked administrative penalty powers over illegal dumpers, while both agencies insisted that the completed cleanup made the lawsuit moot.

The move by the prosecutors reflected a key point: restoring damage is necessary, but clarifying responsibility is also important. If delayed or superficial rectification can erase earlier inaction, similar problems may return.

In January, the court rejected the arguments and confirmed that both bodies had failed to perform their duties in accordance with the law.

The court held that the township government had direct environmental protection responsibilities in its jurisdiction, and that later rectification during litigation could not offset earlier inaction.

For Xu Xiangchun, head of the public interest litigation department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate at the time, such cases show why the system must be precise and restrained.

In administrative public interest litigation, the key is to clarify the boundary of administrative duties and responsibilities, Xu said. In civil public interest litigation, the focus is on identifying infringers and the form of liability they should bear. In environmental cases, this also reflects restorative justice. The goal is not simply to win a case, but to stop damage, repair the environment, prevent recurrence and improve governance at the source.

China's procuratorial public interest litigation system has developed rapidly since it was rolled out in 2017. Since July that year, procuratorial organs have handled more than 608,000 public interest litigation cases involving ecological environment and resource protection, accounting for about 47 percent of all such cases.

In 2025, procuratorial organs handled 133,194 public interest litigation cases across 14 statutory fields, with 47,228 involving ecological and resource protection. Administrative public interest litigation accounted for 91.5 percent of filed cases.

The predominance of administrative cases reflects a key feature of the system. In many public interest problems, harm continues not only because of an individual violation, but also because responsible departments fail to act in time, lack coordination or misunderstand the scope of their duties.

More than 90 percent of administrative public interest litigation cases are resolved before trial through procuratorial suggestions and other pre-litigation procedures. This allows many problems to be addressed at lower judicial cost, while litigation remains available when supervision does not lead to effective action.

The system has expanded beyond environmental protection to fields such as food and drug safety, personal data security, cultural relics protection, workplace safety, accessibility, anti-monopoly issues, telecom fraud, and the protection of specific groups.

A draft procuratorial public interest litigation law has been reviewed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, marking a step toward dedicated legislation. Technology is also changing case handling. By the end of 2025, procuratorial organs had built 291 big data legal supervision models related to public interest litigation. In 2025, these models screened more than 51,800 clues and supported over 30,000 cases.

For Qin Qianhong, a professor at Wuhan University Law School, procuratorial public interest litigation has a distinctive Chinese character. He said the system goes beyond confrontation and pursues coordination.

Its institutional logic, Qin said, is not to replace administrative power, but to provide legal supervision that helps responsible bodies correct mistakes and improve governance.

Qin said a combination of force and restraint is central to the system. It helps prevent public interest protection from falling through the gaps, while respecting the lawful space of administrative agencies to perform their duties.