(Voice of the Two Sessions) Interview with Zhang Xueqiao: From protecting green waters and green mountains to rectifying false propaganda, how can public interest litigation protect people's lives?

　　Chinanews.com, Beijing, March 8. Question: Interview with Zhang Xueqiao: From protecting green waters and green mountains to rectifying false propaganda, how can public interest litigation protect people's lives?

　　Author Xie Yanbing Zhang Su

　　The work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate was submitted to the First Session of the 14th National People's Congress for deliberation on the 7th.

In this report recording the five-year development footprint of the rule of law in China, public interest litigation is frequently mentioned.

　　Outline a more beautiful picture of "one river and one river", escort the safety on the tip of the tongue, and help protect the rights and interests of the elderly... During the National Two Sessions, Zhang Xueqiao, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China, further described in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency Public interest litigation protects people's better life stories.

From black and smelly water to Wanfeng Lake with clear water

　　Zhang Xueqiao started with the Wanfeng Lake project, the "Chinese plan" for river basin governance across administrative divisions.

This case is the first public interest litigation case directly filed and handled by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and it is also the first typical case of successfully governing a large river and lake through public interest litigation.

　　Watershed management has always been a worldwide problem, and the ecological environment of Wanfeng Lake Basin has been damaged for a long time.

Wanfeng Lake is located at the junction of Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan provinces (regions). Its water quality is related to the production and life of the people along the coast and the high-quality development of the Pearl River Basin. deterioration.

　　Since the offenders involved in this case involved different administrative agencies at different levels and levels in different regions, there were a large number of them. If the method of filing the case with the object of supervision was adopted, and the case would be filed after investigation and clarification, it would inevitably delay time, which would continue to expand the damage to the public interest and affect the timely protection of the public interest. sex, effectiveness.

At the beginning of governance, this "hard bone" was not easy to chew.

　　Zhang Xueqiao said that after careful consideration at the time, the Supreme People's Procuratorate decided to directly file a public interest lawsuit based on the fact that the ecological environment of the Wanfeng Lake Basin was damaged after many investigations.

After filing the case, the Supreme Procuratorate dispatched 80 procuratorial personnel from three-level procuratorial organs in Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan in the Wanfeng Lake Basin to form a special case team, and filed a total of 45 specific cases.

　　"This kind of 'superior' jurisdiction is an effort to transform the advantages of the public interest litigation prosecution system into a new driving force for national governance and social governance." Zhang Xueqiao said.

　　For the difficulties and resistance encountered in handling the case, the Supreme Procuratorate task force requires reporting to the higher levels, and promotes the resolution of problems through the performance of duties by the higher courts.

After a year of supervision and rectification, the ecological and environmental pollution of Wanfeng Lake has been effectively rectified, and the water quality has continued to improve.

　　Zhang Xueqiao said that my country's ecological and environmental protection has undergone historic, turning, and overall changes. Some cases have exposed the wrong development ideas of "pollution first, then governance" and "only economic benefits, not environmental protection" in some places. Wan Feng The lake has changed from the black and smelly water before the case to the clear water of the lake today, and the case-handling stage has changed from the cleaning of illegal cages to the development of ecological fisheries. The functions of supervision and urging, coordination and so on.

　　He believes that when performing public interest litigation procuratorial duties, it is necessary not only to calculate the "legal accounts", but also to calculate the "political accounts", "public interest accounts" and "people's livelihood accounts", which not only meet the needs of the people, but also safeguard the national and social public interests , and ultimately achieve a win-win situation.

　　From protecting green water and green mountains to focusing on the concerns of the people

　　The Wanfeng Lake project has been completed, but how to better protect the green water and green mountains is still a subject of follow-up research by the procuratorate.

　　Focusing on case handling, the Supreme People's Procuratorate continued to focus on the clues of the ecological environment warning films in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Yellow River Basin as the focus of procuratorial supervision. A number of "long-standing and difficult" problems of cross-regional river basin governance were resolved.

　　Talking about how to further improve the public interest litigation work in the water-related field, Zhang Xueqiao said that he will focus on the prominent issues disclosed in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Yellow River Basin ecological environment warning film, such as illegal discharge of industrial wastewater, inadequate diversion of rain and sewage, and illegal water collection. "Intensify public interest litigation prosecutorial efforts."

　　The effectiveness of procuratorial public interest litigation lies not only in "water control", but also in all aspects of social life, focusing on the immediate needs of the people in terms of food and drug safety and safe production.

　　Since July 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has launched a three-year special supervision activity of "Protecting a Better Life through Public Interest Litigation", focusing on outstanding issues of public interest damage in the fields of ecological environment and food and drug safety.

A set of data showed a clear "transcript".

Zhang Xueqiao said that by the end of 2022, procuratorial organs across the country had handled more than 548,000 public interest litigation cases in the fields of ecological environment and food and drug safety.

　　During the special event, the public interest litigation and procuratorial departments at all levels focused on the sale of food that did not meet safety standards, the production and sale of counterfeit medicines, and the safety of drinking water, which are the most serious public welfare damages and prominent issues related to the safety of people's production and life, and handled related food and drug fields. There were more than 31,400 cases.

　　Zhang Xueqiao said that the Supreme People's Procuratorate has also directly filed a case for false and illegal advertisements of health products, and instructed the procuratorial organs in Hunan, Jiangsu, Guangxi and other places to supervise and coordinate with relevant functional departments to jointly rectify the promotion of health products to the elderly through false propaganda in the name of health preservation. Chaos.

　　Regarding the anxiety of many people that their personal information will be excessively collected, stolen, and abused, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate has instructed procuratorial agencies in many places to focus on the abuse of face recognition technology in sales offices, shopping malls, and tourist attractions. Intensify supervision and handling of information and other issues, and focus on preventing personal information from being used for telecommunications and network fraud.

　　According to the latest data released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the 7th, in 2022, procuratorial organs across the country will file and handle more than 6,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of personal information protection and anti-telecommunication network fraud.

"Cut off the black hands that extend to personal information security, and public interest litigation should play a greater role in guiding technology for good." Zhang Xueqiao said.

　　Expanding from the "territory" of the statutory field to special legislation

　　While rectifying the "long-standing and difficult" issues that the public is concerned about, the procuratorial organs are also committed to "breaking the problem" of new cases in the field.

In 2022, the newly enacted Anti-Telecommunications Network Fraud Law, the newly revised Anti-Monopoly Law, the Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Law, and the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests all stipulate provisions for public interest litigation.

　　Zhang Xueqiao said that the statutory field of public interest litigation has gradually expanded from the initial four major areas of ecological environment and resource protection, food and drug safety, state-owned property protection, and state-owned land use right transfer to include hero protection, minor protection, safe production, and military affairs. Status and rights protection, personal information protection, anti-monopoly, anti-telecom network fraud, agricultural product quality and safety, women's rights protection and other "4+9" fields.

　　"And it is expanding into new fields such as barrier-free environment construction, cultural relics and cultural heritage protection, showing a '4+N' opening trend, and public interest litigation in the prosecution should protect people's lives in a wider space." Zhang Xueqiao said.

　　Looking forward to the coming year, Zhang Xueqiao said that he will focus on the country's major strategic deployment and carry out "review" on the most direct, most concerned and practical issues of the people; further promote the project of ship pollution control in the Yangtze River Basin, and deepen the special supervision and handling of "elimination" brand names, Carry out the selection and display of outstanding cases and typical cases in a planned way.

　　Accelerating the improvement of the system and exploring a special legislative approach for Chinese procuratorial public interest litigation is also the next goal of the Supreme Procuratorate.

Zhang Xueqiao explained that from the perspective of system design, special legislation on procuratorial public interest litigation is a powerful measure to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities, and it is also an inevitable requirement for realizing Chinese-style modernization.

　　"The formulation of a special procuratorial public interest litigation law, which clearly stipulates the substantive and procedural rules for the operation of procuratorial public interest litigation powers, is conducive to strengthening the legal supervision of procuratorial organs and at the same time promoting the exercise of powers by procuratorial organs in accordance with the law, forming a standardized and efficient power operation control system. .” Zhang Xueqiao said.

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