Chinese prosecutors safeguard high-quality development

BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese procuratorial organs have actively performed their litigation functions and offered strong legal safeguards for the country's high-quality development in the past decade, senior prosecutors said Monday.

Reviewing procuratorial work since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in late 2012, Tong Jianming, deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), told a press conference that Chinese prosecutors have stepped up criminal, civil, administrative and public interest litigations.

TOUGH STANCE ON CRIMINAL OFFENCES

From 2013 to this June, Chinese prosecutors indicted 14.9 million suspects, Tong said.

The handling of a series of cases of organized crimes has deterred such violations, Tong said, adding that the number of people indicted for suspected serious violent crimes dropped from 108,000 in 2013 to 59,000 in 2021.

Prosecutors have taken a zero-tolerance stance on crimes against minors, Tong said.

From 2018 to this June, 256,000 people were indicted on suspicion of crimes against minors, he said.

PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION

Prosecutors nationwide have filed over 670,000 public interest litigation cases, since China instituted the mechanism for procuratorial organs to file public interest lawsuits on July 1, 2017.

As a result, about 7.86 million mu (about 524,000 hectares) of damaged farmlands, forests, wetlands and grasslands have been restored, over 45.84 million tonnes of garbage and solid waste recycled or cleared, and 9.35 billion yuan (about 1.39 billion U.S. dollars) recovered for ecological restoration, according to statistics by the SPP.

Under the watch of the SPP, approximately 1.82 million kg of counterfeit and substandard food have been tackled.

GOOD BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

To ensure the rule of law and build a good business environment, procuratorial authorities have piloted measures to oversee the regulation and overhaul of enterprises involved in litigations while helping bring eligible ones back on track in accordance with the law.

By the end of June this year, procuratorial organs across the country handled 2,382 relevant cases, yielding remarkable results, said the SPP.

Over the recent years, procuratorial organs have deepened supervision over the litigation of criminal cases involving enterprises, and continued to carry out supervision over the filing of cases involving the non-public sector, said SPP official Zhang Xiaojin.