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High Court deals blow to pan-blue legal challenge

The Taiwan High Court yesterday rejected the pan-blue camp's lawsuits seeking to overturn the re-election of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).

The court said the plaintiffs, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party, did not follow the rules in filing the suits.

"According to the Presidential Election and Recall Law (總統副總統選舉罷免法), the plaintiff is supposed to file the suit within 15 days of the Central Election Commission (CEC) announcing the winners," said Wen Yao-yuan (溫耀源), spokesman for the Taiwan High Court.

"The Lien-Soong camp filed the suits on Sunday. However, as of this time, the CEC has not yet made its announcement," Wen said.

The CEC was expected to make an official announcement regarding the result of the election tomorrow.

According to Wen, the rejection of the cases does not affect the court's order to seal the ballots.

The plaintiff has the option of appealing yesterday's court decision or filing the suit again once the CEC officially announces the result.

"The ballots and related evidence will remain secured. We just need to play by the rules," Wen said.

As of press time yesterday, neither the Democratic Progressive Party nor the pan-blue camp had responded to the court's decision.

The blue camp had filed two suits related to the election. The first sought to suspend the result and demand a recount, while the second called for the result to be declared invalid due to fraud.
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