The trial of the first public interest litigation case of its kind which deals with the death of 32 pangolins started in Nanning City of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, bringing public interest litigation into the spotlight once again. The case shows that the litigation system is playing an increasingly important role in safeguarding public interests.

In 2018, China's procuratorate departments handled over 110,000 public interest litigation cases. Prominent problems involving environmental protection, resource conservation and food and drug safety have been addressed.

Compared to traditional litigation, public interest litigation emphasizes public interests and deals with issues of pressing concern to the public. The 10 typical cases of public interest litigation published by the Supreme People's Procuratorate last year, including fake medical advertisements and crank calls, all focused on issues people are most concerned with, which were hard to crack.

China's public interest litigation system has been set up to promote the modernization of national governance through legal means. However, it has no set model to follow. Only by expanding the scope of public interest litigation to improve its role in protecting public interests can the system contribute more to social governance.

(This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in People's Daily on June 25)