Prosecutor’s participation in civil and administrative proceedings in defense of public interests in the China

Abstract

With the rapid development of the economy, violations of public interest, such as environmental pollution, and food and drug safety issues, are increasingly occurring, resulting in the violation of personal rights and enormous losses of property assets for a large number of people. At present, citizens or relevant public organizations are unable to take legal action affecting the public interest to resolve problems, so it is necessary to rely on the prosecution authorities to protect public order and the public interest through the exercise of their prosecutorial powers. The implementation of relevant legislation by prosecutors has achieved considerable results in favor of the protection of public interests, but problems have accordingly arisen in both civil and administrative proceedings for the protection of public interests brought by prosecution authorities. One set of problems is the limitation only to areas of cases specified in law, making the range of cases is narrow; the implementation of prosecutorial supervision leading to difficulties in proving damage to the public interest; and prosecutors’ lack of professional knowledge. The article presents and analyzes the legal framework for prosecutors’ involvement in public interest litigation in China and reveals the causes of the fundamental problems; and suggests ways to improve the current legislation and ways to solve the problems arising by using a modern intelligent judicial system and with the help of relevant administrative authorities in the field of environment and environmental protection, natural resources, food and medicine, consumer protection, and so on.