Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, attends a joint deliberation and inquiry meeting in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 25, 2019. The top legislature on Friday held a joint deliberation and inquiry into a report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on public interest litigations. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING -- The top legislature on Friday held a joint deliberation and inquiry into a report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on public interest litigations.

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, attended the meeting and delivered a speech.

During the inquiry, legislators asked questions about how to solve the major problems in the work on public interest litigations, what measures procuratorates and other departments will take to deal with the disorder in the market of health products, how to improve the use of public interest litigations to enhance the protection of natural resources assets of public ownership, among others.

Procurator-general Zhang Jun and officials from multiple ministries and government agencies including the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources and the State Administration for Market Regulation answered the questions.

During his speech, Li commended the achievements made with the system of public interest litigation and asked for further discovery and improvement in the work on public interest litigations given the work is still on its early stage.

He stressed the professionalization of the procuratorial work on such litigations and called for efforts to further play the roles of lawmakers, mobilize the enthusiasm of social organizations and the public, and gather their efforts to protect public interests.

Zhang said that procuratorates will standardize their handling of cases on public interests and their coordination with other functional bodies, continue to improve relevant regulations and work hard to deal with their shortcomings in capabilities.

The report was submitted on Monday to the NPC Standing Committee for review at its ongoing bimonthly session.