Top judiciary fortifies public interest litigation

China's top judicial authorities have stepped up legal oversight via administrative public interest litigation to address public interest harm from unlawful or inactive administrative acts, standardizing administrative power exercise and curbing violations at the source, officials from the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate said recently.

Geng Baojian, director of the SPC's administrative tribunal, said that public interests tied to the national economy and people's livelihood often face a "tragedy of the commons" due to a lack of direct stakeholders. Procuratorial organs prioritize prelitigation remedies but will file lawsuits when procuratorial suggestions fail to stop ongoing public interest harm, breaking governance deadlocks.

As of this year, procuratorial organs nationwide handled over 120,000 administrative public interest litigation cases, issued over 79,000 procuratorial suggestions, and initiated more than 1,100 lawsuits against government departments, urging administrative organs to standardize law enforcement and strengthen accountability.

Xu Xiangchun, director of the SPP's Public Interest Litigation Procuratorial Department, stressed that public interest protection is a systematic project, with administrative public interest litigation serving as a platform for multistakeholder collaboration.

Courts and procuratorates fulfill their judicial trial and legal supervision roles, respectively, to safeguard national and social public interests.

In a typical case, the Xing'an district procuratorate in Hegang, Heilongjiang province, identified irregularities in 4,206 public rental housing units via big data, with 98 long-vacant units, 11 unqualified tenants, 110 households with rent arrears exceeding six months, and chronic issues including lost files, expired contracts, and distorted data. The district's housing bureau was found derelict in its duties.

The procuratorate issued procuratorial suggestions in September 2024, urging full duty performance and classified rectification. However, follow-up supervision revealed inadequate and false rectification. The procuratorate sued the bureau in January 2025.

The district court ordered the bureau to fulfill its duty. After the judgment, the housing bureau launched an operation on rent collection and tenant eviction. Judicial and procuratorial organs also convened joint meetings to resolve interdepartmental coordination and data loss issues, achieving full rectification.

Qiu Jinghui, deputy director of the SPP's Public Interest Litigation Procuratorial Department, said procuratorial organs use procuratorial suggestions and lawsuits to regulate administrative power, and transfer mature oversight practices like special operations and issuing guiding cases to institutions.

Focusing on public needs, procuratorates break cross-regional and cross-departmental governance barriers, fostering a collaborative governance mechanism to address long-standing governance challenges and enhance public awareness, he said.

To address public welfare damages caused by overlapping or vacant administrative functions or cross-regional or cross-departmental issues, courts have fully collaborated with procuratorial organs to resolve the dilemma in certain public welfare areas, said Wang Xiaobin, a first-class senior judge of the SPC's administrative tribunal.

According to the SPC, from July 1, 2024, to Sept 30, 2025, courts nationwide concluded 733 first-instance nonenvironmental administrative public interest litigation cases, with 21 percent resolved via mediation to achieve substantive dispute settlement.

Cases involving food and drug safety, State-owned property protection, and land use rights transfer accounted for 14.9 percent of the total, while those on martyrs' rights, juvenile protection, and women's rights held a moderate share.

Courts frequently issued rulings confirming administrative illegality, revoking unlawful acts, or ordering duty fulfillment, emphasizing the principle that post-litigation rectification does not exempt prior inaction from liability.

This sends a clear signal that administrative organs must proactively fulfill statutory duties instead of waiting for lawsuits, Wang said.

yangzekun@chinadaily.com.cn