Criticism of the pan-blue camp's legal team emerged from within yesterday amid other controversy sparked by the camp's election lawsuit loss on Thursday.
Saying that the People First Party (PFP) and Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) legal team was not sharp enough in its strategy, PFP Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) yesterday said that the lawyers should have made the alliance's pending lawsuit against the legitimacy of the election the focus of its agenda.
The pan-blue alliance filed two lawsuits over President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election. The first lawsuit challenged Chen's confirmation as president for a second term based on allegations that the government had manipulated election results through ballot mis-counting as well as the election eve shooting of Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
The second lawsuit challenged the timing of the election.
The pan-blue camp lost the first lawsuit on Thursday, while the second lawsuit is still pending. The pan-blue camp has sworn to appeal the first lawsuit.
"If we had made the lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of election's timing our focus, then our chances of winning would have been higher, because we have more evidence for that lawsuit," Chiu said.
Evidence such as irregularities in voter registration lists, Chiu said, would have been more effective if used in the second lawsuit, whereas the first lawsuit would have benefited from more time for investigation.
In response, the spokesperson for the pan-blues' legal team, Lai Shu-ju (
"A lawyer is meant to fulfill his or her duty in the courts without the burden of political manipulation or strategy," Lai said.
The alliance's lawyers actually worked harder than those of the government, Lai said, because the burden of proof was on the pan-blue camp.
"We would not have taken on or presented the cases as we did," Lai said, if the pan-blue camp had not been optimistic about the lawsuits' success.
Speaking at the KMT's headquarters yesterday, Lai also questioned the government's release of forensic expert Henry Lee's report on the election-eve shooting.
Why was the report made public yesterday only after it was used in the lawsuit, Lai asked.
"This was a civil suit, not a criminal lawsuit. When do you have evidence that is not made public in a civil suit?" Lai said.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of