DgcityChina has passed its first dedicated law on public-interest litigation, turning a prosecurricular experiment that began more than a decade ago into a settled part of the legal system. The 53-article statute was adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Under the law, prosecutors can press two kinds of cases. Administrative suits target government offices whose unlawful acts or inaction harm the public, across ten listed areas that include pollution, food and drug safety, workplace accidents, cultural heritage, accessibility, and the rights of minors, women, the elderly and people with disabilities. Telecommunications fraud and ethnic unity were added to the list. Civil suits can target companies and individuals over monopolies, mass labour violations, large-scale misuse of personal information and insults to the memory of national heroes.
A core requirement is that prosecutors try to fix problems before filing. With a government office, they must first open a dialogue and issue a formal recommendation describing the violation, the harm and a deadline to correct it; in urgent cases the agency has 15 days to respond. Litigation follows only if the problem persists. In civil matters, prosecutors must give other qualified bodies a 30-day window to sue before stepping in themselves.
The law also draws a line around investigative power. Prosecutors may interview people, visit sites and gather documents, but they cannot detain anyone or seize and freeze property, and they may not replace agencies in carrying out their duties. In court, they carry the burden of proving the harm and can seek restoration, compensation or orders to stop the conduct.
The program began as a pilot in 2015 and has produced thousands of cases, most visibly against polluters, with prosecutors also moving against sellers of unsafe food and companies that collected personal information without consent. Many cases end at the recommendation stage, with agencies correcting the problem without ever appearing in court.
Codifying the program gives prosecutors a clearer mandate while answering longstanding complaints from businesses that investigations could open-endedly disrupt their operations. It also hands courts a fuller role in disputes that pit state offices or large firms against the wider public, cases that ordinary citizens rarely have the resources to bring on their own.
