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 (
PHOTO: LO PEI-TEH, TAIPEI TIMES
Lee Tsung-teh (
The lawyer was apparently referring to the March 19 attempt to assassinate President Chen Shui-bian (
"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 (
Lee's argument was immediately rebutted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) defense counsel Johnson Chuang (
"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 (
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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