Summary
2 November 2012
A Chinese man who served 11 years of a life sentence for fraud has received a record compensation payout, according to news reports. Huang Liyi's award of $130,000 amounts to around $30 for every day spent in prison.
Reporter:
John Sudworth
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Report
China's legal system has long been criticised by human rights groups for producing a high number of wrongful convictions and, for those on the receiving end of such rough justice, overturning a conviction is difficult.
Hyang Liyi, from the southern city of Kaiping, had his appeals rejected numerous times before his conviction for cheque fraud was eventually overturned in 2010. Now, according to a report in the Southern Metropolis Daily, he has won a record amount of compensation, the $130,000 said to have been calculated by multiplying the number of days spent inside by the average daily wage for urban workers.
In another widely reported case two years ago, which highlighted the use of torture to gain confessions in China, a man from Henan province won a slightly lower sum after a wrongful conviction for murder. He spent ten years in prison but his alleged victim was eventually found to be alive.
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Vocabulary
- legal system
body of rules by which modern societies work
- human rights groups
organisations that advocate rights that are supposed to be natural to every person
- overturning/overturned
reverting/reverted a previous decision
- appeals
request to a higher court to reverse the decision of a lower court
- wage
money paid to a person in exchange for work
- torture
action taken with the deliberate objective of making someone suffer
- confessions
statements admitting guilt
- alleged
said without proof
