Beginning with China’s two nationwide Strike Hard campaigns, this article traces the reconstruction, adjustment, and development of criminal law and criminal procedure after reform and opening.

On the evening of April 9, 1996, eighteen-year-old Hugjiltu discovered a murdered woman. He asked a colleague to help report the crime, only to be identified by investigators as the killer. Just 62 days separated the crime from his execution; his acquittal came 18 years later. This episode returns to the Strike Hard era, tracing the Hugjiltu case from conviction to exoneration, examining the central principles of criminal procedure, and asking what justice delayed can leave behind.

The Chong Fung Yuen case and the right of abode of Chinese children born in Hong Kong: legal interpretation, policy disputes, and the lives of families behind the judgment.

Beginning with Ng Ka Ling, this episode traces the Court of Final Appeal’s judgments and the Hong Kong government’s response to explain the first NPC Standing Committee interpretation of the Basic Law. It examines how final adjudication and final interpretive authority coexist after the handover, and how constitutional disputes affect families on either side of the border.

The Carrian case lasted seventeen years and shows how Hong Kong's ICAC pursued a landmark fraud through cross-border investigation, divided prosecution powers, and judicial oversight.