Judge tells pan-blue camp to shape up

Taiwan High Court judges said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance hadn't prepared properly for their case trying to overturn the result of the presidential election and gave the alliance's lawyers two weeks to get their act together.

"According to the vague indictment you presented, obviously, you did not try your best," Presiding Judge Cheng Ya-ping (鄭雅萍) told the alliance's lawyers yesterday. "Please reconstruct and resubmit your indictment within two weeks."

The pan-blue camp's case relies on four arguments.

First, it claims the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took advantage of the referendum as propaganda for its campaign activities.

Second, the alliance says stricter national security measures forced more military and police to stay on duty instead of going home to vote.

Third, it says the Central Election Commission (CEC) failed to postpone the election or make proper arrangements for the vote after the assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).

Fourth, the pan-blue camp says the CEC did not properly separate voters who participated in the referendum.

Lawyers for the CEC said that the opposition never asked for a postponement of the election. After the shooting, opposition candidate KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said in televised comments that the vote shouldn't be delayed because he was confident that voters wouldn't become emotional and allow the incident to determine their vote.

Before the election, Lien also had an opportunity to challenge the legality of Chen's plan to hold the referendum on the same day as the presidential vote. Although he opposed the referendum as a campaign gimmick, Lien decided not to try to block the vote -- a move that might have branded him as being antidemocratic.

Cheng said the alliance's arguments were not clear and that its attorneys had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claims.

The hearing yesterday was the first for the KMT-PFP alliance's lawsuit seeking to have the election declared a fraud.

Prior to yesterday's hearing, Cheng complained about a news story in the Chinese-language media that said she and the two other judges hearing the case were favorites of the pan-blue camp.

She asked whether the defense counsel wanted to apply for new judges, but defense lawyers said it wasn't necessary.

The blue camp had withdrawn the suit and resubmitted it on April 7 in an effort to get judges more friendly to its cause to hear the case.

In addition to complaining about the alliance's vague arguments, the judge warned the alliance's attorneys that, although they are allowed to request a recount, any such request would be declined since a recount has already been scheduled for May 10.

She also suggested the alliance agree to merge this suit with a second case aiming to suspend Chen's and Lu's re-election.

"Article 205 of the Code of Civil Procedure (民事訴訟法) clearly states that `related civil cases can be merged into one case,'" Cheng said.

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