International New York Times
3 February 2016
For two decades, Shang Aiyun waited for the day when the people responsible for convicting and executing her teenage son for a murder he did not commit would be held to account.
But when the moment of reckoning came this week, Ms. Shang was outraged. The authorities in Inner Mongolia announced on Sunday that only one person would face a criminal investigation in the wrongful conviction of Ms. Shang’s son, Huugjilt, while 26 others would receive minor demerits.
“These people don’t even have the courage to admit their mistakes and recognize their wrongdoing,” Ms. Shang said in an interview with Global Times, a state newspaper. “How can they handle legal cases impartially in the future?”
Under President Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has made overturning cases of gross injustice a centerpiece of its efforts to overhaul the legal system, long troubled by corruption and abuse. But even as the party has moved to create a more equitable judicial system, it has resisted harsh punishments for officials involved in wrongful convictions, wary of creating instability...
Fu Hualing, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, said it was possible that more severe punishments would be announced later, as the investigation progressed.
“The problem is the institutional interests of the judges, the police officers and the prosecutors,” he said. “The question is whether the central authority has enough persuasion to really force the institution to be accountable.”... Click here to read the full article.
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