Recently, Zhu Yu, Party Secretary and Procurator-General of Gansu Provincial Procuratorate, and Cheng Liang, Party Secretary and Director of Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, had a discussion and exchange on the joint supervision activities of public interest litigation for the protection of state-owned cultural relics. Ding Xiamin, Deputy Procurator-General of Gansu Provincial Procuratorate, Chen Yuzhu, Deputy Director of Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the Eighth Procuratorial Department of Gansu Provincial Procuratorate, and the heads of safety supervision department of Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau attended the discussion.
Zhu Yu pointed out that in February 2020, Gansu Provincial Procuratorate and Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau decided to jointly carry out a two-year special supervision activity of public interest litigation for the protection of state-owned cultural relics in Gansu, focusing on eight kinds of illegal acts such as destroying cultural relics and carrying out engineering construction without authorization within the scope of cultural relics protection, grasping the relationship between protection and utilization, and organically combining supervision with development, which has achieved remarkable results and deserves recognition. In the past two years, procuratorial organs in Gansu Province have been closely linked with cultural relics departments at all levels, working together to sort out problems, discuss governance difficulties, and form a linkage protection mechanism that not only supervises according to law but also performs duties in coordination. The supervision has corrected a number of key and difficult problems, such as “abiding by laws, lax enforcement, and not going unpunished”, and promoted the unified, correct, and effective implementation of relevant laws and regulations on cultural relics protection. The present situation of cultural relics protection in Gansu has been further improved. He stressed that procuratorial organs in Gansu Province should strengthen cooperation with cultural relics departments, further improve and perfect scientific and targeted cooperation mechanisms, and consolidate and deepen cooperation mechanisms such as clue transfer, information sharing, technical support, consultation, consultation and joint supervision in special activities, so as to jointly promote cultural relics protection. Strengthen the publicity and guidance of the rule of law, actively promote the effectiveness of cultural relics protection, expand social awareness and influence, broaden the channels for social forces and people to participate in cultural relics protection, and constantly raise the awareness of cultural relics protection in the whole society.
Cheng Liang introduced a series of cases of Great Wall protection jointly handled by the two sides in the special supervision activities, and other typical cases with demonstration significance for the protection of cultural relics in Gansu. He said that the special activities have significantly enhanced the awareness of cultural relics protection responsibilities of governments at all levels and relevant functional departments, and a number of problems left over from history, such as hidden dangers of cultural relics, illegal buildings in cultural relics protection areas, and the absence of low-level cultural relics management, have been properly solved, effectively promoting the cultural relics security situation in Gansu Province to be stable and improving. The procuratorial public interest litigation of cultural relics protection in Gansu Province has also been highly concerned and fully affirmed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. I hope to further improve the long-term working mechanism of public interest litigation for the protection of state-owned cultural relics on the basis of summing up the experience of the previous stage.
(Gan Jian)