A woman petitioner's winning of a case against a local committee in charge of laojiao, or reeducation through labor, may go down in history as the costly trigger for nationwide soul-searching over the long-controversial punishment.

The People's High Court of Hunan Province ruled on Monday that Tang Hui, a 40-year-old mother of a girl who was raped and forced into prostitution at the age of 11, should be compensated 1,600 yuan ($260) for being detained in a reeducation through labor facility for nine days and 1,000 yuan for the mental suffering it caused.

However, while upholding the charge of "disturbing social order" by which the Yongzhou laojiao committee threw Tang into the reeducation facility, the high court has based its ruling on a technical error the committee committed by detaining Tang after it revoked a previous decision.