Legal papers on false rape and murder conviction to go public

The China Court Museum is to showcase files related to the case of Nie Shubin, who was executed after being falsely convicted of rape and murder in 1995 but was exonerated last year.

The Supreme People’s Court has described the revocation of the original verdict as “a milestone in China’s progress in the field of rule of law”.

Nie Shubin was convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering a woman on the outskirts of Hebei provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, and was executed the same year at the age of 21. The case reemerged in 2005 when another man, Wang Shujin, admitted his guilt and said Nie was innocent.

In December 2014, the higher court of Shandong Province was assigned by the Supreme People’s Court to review the case and found there were too many questions about the previous trial to uphold the conviction.

On December 2016, Nie’s verdict was revoked after a retrial by the Second Circuit Court under the Supreme People’s Court, due to insufficient evidence and unclear facts.

“The revocation of the verdict of Nie Shubin shows the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee, with Xi Jinping at its core, has been carrying out people-centered governing policies, pushing forward the all-round rule of law and judicial reforms”, said Hu Yunteng, head of the Second Circuit Court under the Supreme People’s Court of China.

The museum received the files from the Second Circuit Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China on Friday. They include video of the open trial, the verdict signed by all the members of the collegiate bench, and the gavel used in the trial.

Sending the files of Nie’s case to the China Court Museum will showcase the winding course of the rule of law in China to the public, and will also serve as a reminder to judicial personnel to stick to judicial justice, added Hu.