Taipei District Court yesterday said the court would not broadcast the process of hearings or trial involving former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Chen was charged in December with money laundering, corruption and forgery. A three-day consecutive “preparation hearings” for Chen’s case will start tomorrow, during which prosecutors and the defendant will go through the evidence and decide future hearings and trial dates.
“As stipulated in Article 90 of the Organic Act of Court Organization (法院組織法), no loud conversations, applause, photography, smoking, eating or drinking are allowed at court. Recording is also prohibited except with the presiding judge’s approval. As a result, it is impossible for us to broadcast a hearing or a trial on TV,” Taipei District Court Spokesman Huang Chun-ming (黃俊明) said.
Huang’s remarks came in the wake of local media reports that the public was hoping the Court would broadcast Chen’s hearings on TV.
Meanwhile, Chen’s defense counsel, Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍), yesterday said he harbored a pessimistic outlook on chances of “a good result from the first trial verdict.”
“Judging from previous conversations at court, it appears that Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) already believes that the former president is guilty,” Cheng said. “How can you expect anything good from him?”
Saying that Tsai and his fellow judges for the case had come under tremendous pressure from the public and the media since they began the case, Cheng said: “It is almost impossible for them to rule in favor of the former president.”
“This is totally not a fair game at all,” Cheng said.
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