The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) recently convened a meeting in Southwest China's Yunnan province to review the progress of the procuratorial public interest litigation campaign on tea industry protection as part of measures to advance the campaign on supervision over food and drug safety through procuratorial public interest litigation. It also aims to further enhance prosecutors' duty performance of procuratorial public interest litigation for tea industry protection.
In June 2024, the SPP launched the "Procuratorial Public Interest Campaign on Tea Industry Protection". This initiative was further integrated into the "Campaign on Supervision over Food and Drug Safety through Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation" in January of this year.
Since its launch, procuratorates nationwide have filed more than 300 public interest litigation cases related to tea industry protection, including over 280 administrative public interest litigation cases. They also issued over 240 procuratorial recommendations, and handled approximately 20 civil public interest litigation cases.
Focusing on statutory areas such as environmental protection, food and edible agricultural product safety, and the preservation of cultural relics and heritage, procuratorial organs actively explored judicial protection of intellectual property rights and geographical indications in the tea industry, and handled a number of procuratorial public interest litigation cases with high quality and efficiency.
Local procuratorates have tailored their supervision work to address region-specific challenges in local tea industry development. Through targeted supervision measures and technological empowerment, procuratorates have enhanced case-handling and provided strong legal support for the growth of the industry.
It was emphasized at the meeting that the procuratorates at all levels should intensify their efforts in key areas such as food safety, ecological environment protection, and cultural heritage conservation to improve the quality and efficiency of case handling, and enhance standardized and precise supervision through formulating case-handling guidelines, refining evidence review rules, and implementing case supervision mechanisms.
Efforts should be made to strengthen systemic governance to establish a coordination mechanism involving procuratorial authorities, administrative departments, and tea industry businesses, and integrate food safety assurance with tea industry revitalization to promote the building of a government-led, enterprise-driven and public-involved protection landscape for the tea industry, according to the meeting.
