Appeals project helps to advance the rule of law

Lawyers and academics in Beijing are working together to help overturn wrongful convictions, as Cao Yin reports.

Last month, when a court of appeal overturned Liu Zhonglin's conviction for homicide because of a lack of admissible evidence, Zhang Yupeng, Liu's lawyer, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

For Zhang, the case had been a "marathon", not only because Liu had spent 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit - almost certainly China's longest case of wrongful detention - but also because it took two years for a ruling to be made after a retrial in April 2016.