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Pan-blue alliance `scrapes' together its court deposit

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance yesterday submitted a mandatory NT$60-million deposit to the Taiwan High Court to assist in funding the presidential election recount, which is scheduled for May 10.

"We have finally collected enough money for the required deposit," said KMT Administration and Management Committee director-general Chang Che-shen (張哲琛).

The deposit of NT$60 million was ordered by Taiwan High Court judges Wu Ching-yuan (吳景源), Cheng Chun-hui (鄭純惠) and Teng Yun-chieh (滕允潔). The judges also ordered the plaintiff to deposit the money by today, otherwise the recount would have been canceled.

In addition to the approximately 2,000 judges and court clerks who will supervise the recount, both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the KMT-PFP alliance have hired more than 700 lawyers to assist with the recount. The recount is expected to be completed within 10 days.

"We had a hard time collecting the deposit since it was a lot of money," Chang said. "Our lawyers tried asking for help from the Judicial Reform Foundation (民間司法改革基金會) to see if we could borrow a part of the NT$100 million donated by Kingston, but our request was declined."

Chang was referring to Kingston Technology, a company which donated NT$100 million to the foundation on April 16.

According to a contract between the company and the foundation, the money will be used to pay for expenses incurred during the recount upon the request of either the plaintiff or the defendant.

According to the Code of Civil Procedure (民事訴訟法), the loser of the suit will pay for expenses incurred.

Chang said that parts of the NT$60 million deposit came from donations, but the majority was drawn from KMT assets.
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