The Taiwan High Court yesterday said that the verdicts of the two suits filed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to suspend President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu's (呂秀蓮) re-election on the grounds of fraud will be handed down in "less than six months."
"The law gives us six months to come up with a verdict regarding cases like this. However, I can assure you that we will not need that much time," said Chang Hsin-hsiung (張信雄), the president of the Taiwan High Court. "We will try to finish our job, since it is a case that concerns the president and the vice president of the country."
Chang made his remarks during a press conference at the high court yesterday morning. He said that the Taiwan High Court's Court No. 9, which is an "election court," is now in charge of the case.
An "election court" presides over all election-related disputes. There are three election courts with nine judges at the High Court.
In the meantime, Chang also said that judges have completed the legal processes for the two suits, which seek to suspend Chen and Lu's re-election and declare the presidential election a fraud. Judges will begin to hear the cases "soon."
Also, regarding the Lien-Soong camp's request to seize all ballots and recount them, Chang said that 21 local district courts have already ordered the ballots to be seized. Whether to recount the ballots depends on judges decision after they review the evidence provided by the plaintiff.
Should judges decide to recount the ballots, they are authorized to decide whether they want to recount all or part of the ballots.
For the first suit, which is to suspend the election results, the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (
For the second suit, which asks to declare the balloting a fraud, the judges are authorized to announce a partial re-election or a national re-election. However, if the election is called a fraud, the winning candidates' new titles will be automatically dropped.
Judges will also be authorized to decide whether a national re-election or just a regional re-election should be held if either suit is granted. In addition, only those voters who had voted in the initial election are allowed to vote in the re-election.
The law also regulates that both verdicts must be handed down within six months from the day the Taiwan High Court finishes all necessary legal processes prior to the judges beginning to hear the case.
In the future, if the plaintiff or the defendant is not happy with the verdict, either party will be allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.
While Lien-Soong supporters' rallied in front of the Presidential Office, a team of PFP lawmakers went to State Public Prosecutor-General Lu Jen-fa's (盧仁發) office to request that he order prosecutors to begin the recount immediately on Sunday night. However, they did not meet Lu Jen-fa in person until yesterday morning, when he went to work at his normal time.
He promised immediately that he would ask prosecutors to cooperate with judges and do whatever necessary. But he also said that it was not within a prosecutor's authority to decide when to recount the ballots.
In the meantime, Taichung pro-secutors and Kaohsiung prosecutors decided to strike against those who attacked prosecutors' offices on Saturday night.
In Taichung, the police arrested 38-year-old Ku Hsien-ming (谷憲明) and 43-year-old Cheng Chien-chiang (鄭建鎗), who allegedly smashed the glass door of the Taichung District Prosecutors' Office and turned them in to the prosecutors' office for further interrogation. Their behavior at the Taichung riot was recorded by a TV news crew, police said. However, both of them insisted they were pushed by the crowd toward the glass door and "accidentally" broke the glass, instead of smashing it.
In Kaohsiung, the police said that when they finish screening video footage and collecting evidence, they will begin to summon several people, including PFP Lawmaker Chiu Yi (
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