Landmark judgment upholds justice

Dec 2, 2016, is an important day for a person named Nie Shubin, or rather his family. Twenty-one years after Nie was sentenced to death and executed for rape and murder, he was found innocent by the Second Circuit Court of the Supreme People's Court.

Nie was executed in 1995, so the court declaring him innocent cannot bring him back to life. Yet the court verdict is a landmark in China's judicial history.

It was in June 2016 that the Supreme People's Court decided to start the retrial of Nie's case. Earlier, in December 2014, it had asked the Shandong provincial people's court to re-investigate the case. For two full years, scores of people, including judges, lawyers, as well as journalists, endeavored to unearth the truth. They were searching for the answer to one question: Was Nie innocent as his family claimed?