Beijing's top prosecuting body successful in resolving livelihood cases

Thanks to procuratorial efforts offline and online, a number of cases involving people's livelihood in Beijing have been resolved, the capital's top prosecuting authority said on Friday.

Since the Supreme People's Procuratorate, China's top procuratorate, launched a campaign against livelihood-related offenses nationwide in February, Beijing prosecutors have tackled 23,367 such cases and 17,290 of them have been concluded, according to Wang Zihan, head of the sixth procuratorial office with the People's Procuratorate of Beijing Municipality.

She released the data at a news conference, saying that the prosecutors focused more on livelihood fields that received frequent complaints, including food and drug safety, housing and pollution.

"We've paid high attention to fighting the illegal fishing of aquatic products and solving the food safety problems on livestreaming platforms through public-interest litigation, with strong supervision over housing rental and conservation of arable land," she said.

"At the same time, we've also strengthened the protection of legitimate rights and interests of children, women, soldiers and workers by efficiently handling cases related to them," she added.

In one case, for example, a man surnamed Zhang was sentenced to eight months in prison after being found guilty of beating his wife multiple times, causing her fractures and soft tissue contusions, from June to October 2023.

While supporting and helping the woman surnamed Li to divorce and apply for the personal safety protection order to judges, prosecutors from the capital's Mentougou district also provided psychological and financial aid for a girl of the pair during the case handling to reduce the harm caused by the domestic violence to the child under the age of 10, said Ning Xiaoying, deputy head of the office.

"In addition, the district's prosecutors offered law education for the divorced couple and increased communication with the two, so as to solve their conflict from the root," she added.

Since the beginning of this year, Beijing prosecutors have also taken advantage of big data and artificial intelligence in the handling of livelihood-related cases, with quick response to livelihood complaints collected from 12345, a governmental hotline, Wang said.

She added that prosecutors across the city have made 196 online products and services to enhance people's awareness of preventing telecom fraud, and those from Haidian district also worked with financial institutes, public security bureaus and internet platforms to jointly ensure the safety of the residents' property.