In China, public order and good morals reflect core socialist values. As judicial organs of the state, people’s courts are responsible for maintaining those values through judgments. Notable examples can be found in any number of trials in Chinese people’s courts.

The Supreme People’s Court released a list of 10 typical environment-related cases on Dec 29, 2015. A group of public interest environmental lawsuits were included.

“People’s courts will guide the public to safeguard environmental public-interest, encourage a low-carbon lifestyle, and create awareness of the need for construction of ecological civilization,” said Wang Xuguang, deputy chief judge of the environmental resources tribunal at SPC.

The SPC also unveiled typical cases of crime, endangering public safety, marriage and family disputes, contract disputes, and refusals to obey a legally effective judgment or ruling.

“These high prevalence cases are of wide social concern. They are a grave warning for society through the judges’ interpretations,” said Guo Feng, deputy director of the SPC research office.

Last July, the people’s court of Changting county, Fujian province concluded a public interest environmental lawsuit in which the defendant was directed to carefully demolish a pig farm while following processes of bio-safety disposal of waste, and then to restore vegetation to the land. In Fujian’s Longyan city, a total of 218 lawsuits involved the ecological environment compensation mechanism, resulting in reforestation of over 9,000 mu (6 million square meters) of land.

In addition, enforcement of cases concerning people’s livelihood has attracted public attention. On Dec 30, 2015, Zhang Liyong, head of the high people's court of Henan province, went to a construction site in Chaoyang town, Mengjin county of Luoyang city, taking more than 5 million yuan ($814,332) to pay over 50 migrant workers.

From Nov 20 to Dec 4, 2015, the courts in Henan province handled 6,717 cases of defaulting on migrant workers' wages, including 1,387 concluded cases and 449 cases where judgment enforcement was executed.

These cases involved 10,300 workers and 314 million yuan. They helped to punish offenders and protect vulnerable groups through just decisions and effective law enforcement.