China mulls allowing public interest litigation
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Xinhua, October 24, 2011
Legislators are to discuss a change in the law that would make it easier for court cases to be brought against those involved in environmental and food safety scandals.
A draft of the proposed new legislation was formally filed Monday, the first day of the bi-monthly meeting of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. It will be discussed before the session ends Saturday.
The "public interest litigation", designed to deal with large-scale violations of public interests, would allow government and non-government organizations to take big businesses to court on behalf of individuals or small groups of citizens.
It comes in the wake of several pollution and food safety incidents in China. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart was fined for mislabeling ordinary pork as "green pork" in a number of its outlets in Chongqing, for example.
