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Blues' election case slammed by judge

A group of lawyers prepare for the latest court hearing regarding the pan-blue alliance's lawsuit to nullify the presidential election at the Taiwan High Court in Taipei yesterday. The hearing did not result in any conclusion. PHOTO: LO PEI-TEH, TAIPEI TIMES

Although they did not submit any new evidence yesterday, the pan-blue alliance's attorneys said that the Central Election Commission (CEC) had failed to carry out its duties to maintain a fair and clean election, and demanded that the presidential election be rendered invalid.

The argument by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) alliance's attorneys was not strong enough to persuade the judges, and Taiwan High Court presiding judge Cheng Ya-ping (鄭雅萍) rendered them speechless by responding with questions which she came up with from their own arguments.

Lee Tsung-teh (李宗德), one of the alliance's lawyers, said that the CEC should have immediately suspended the election because voters' decisions might have been affected by "some incidents" that might have twisted the result of the election and made it "unfair."

The lawyer was apparently referring to the March 19 attempt to assassinate President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). The pan-blue camp lawyers have complained that the shooting affected the result of the election.

"The evidence we collected showed that many voters decided not to vote or voted for Chen and Lu after the shooting," said Lee. "Under these kinds of circumstances, the CEC should have suspended the election until investigators closed the case."

The evidence mentioned by Lee includes a questionnaire conducted by the National Policy Foundation (國家政策發展基金會), a KMT think tank after the incident, and another questionnaire conducted by the local TV station TVBS before the incident.

Lee's argument was immediately rebutted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) defense counsel Johnson Chuang (莊勝榮).

"KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said we shall carry on with the election when he was interviewed on TV after the shooting took place," said Chuang. "Your Honor, what I said is verifiable if you ask for the video footage from any of local TV stations. Why is it that they are complaining the election should have been suspended now? It is ironic, isn't it?"

Huang Chao-yuan (黃昭元), a National Taiwan University law professor and a CEC member said that the alliance's complaint is illogical.

"The CEC is only authorized to suspend an election when the candidate is dead. While they [the plaintiffs] are complaining that we did not `do something,' does that mean the CEC's authorization should be expanded?" said Huang. "The CEC is a government office which is supposed to stay neutral under all kinds circumstances, no?"

Article 17, Section 1 of the Referendum Law (公投法) was another focus during yesterday's hearing. The blue camp said that this article is against the Constitution.

According to the article, the referendum shall be carried out if the president proposes it and the Cabinet approves, if the issue concerns national defense.

Other than issues of national defense, a referendum can be carried out with an endorsement of 5 percent of registered voters and an approval by the Legislature's referendum evaluation committee.

"This is extremely unfair to the alliance's candidates," said Lee.

Before Lee finished his argument over the article, Cheng immediately rebutted by asking, "Excuse me, but, isn't the current Referendum Law the version which was passed by KMT and PFP lawmakers? If so, why are you complaining about something that was passed by your own lawmakers?" the judge asked.

Yesterday's four-hour debate did not result in any conclusion, and Cheng did not announce the next hearing date.
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