[Editorial] Was the indictment of election law violators fair?

It appears now that our hopes rest entirely on our courts to bring to justice those election law violators during the 16th National Assembly election.

As we have worried about, controversies are now mounting to question the prosecutors`impartiality as they completed the investigations into the cases of election law offences before the lapse of the statute of limitations Friday.

The critics point out that the prosecutors due to their political considerations concentrated their efforts to bring charges against the opposition party members while they were lenient on the ruling party memebrs.

Thus, the onus is now on the courts to conduct rigorous and fair trials for election law violations.

Needless to say, the prosecutors state that their indictments were soley based on criminal offences and evidence.

On the surface, it appears that their investigations were more rigorous this time than any other occasions in the past.

In the case of the 15th National Assembly election, for example, only 10 persons, representing 8 percent of the 125 legislators charged with the election law offences, were brought to stand for trial.

But, some 25 lawmakers were indicted this time for trial that represent some 20 percent of 125 persons who were charged with the election offences.

On a closer analysis, however, there are many loose ends which defy our understanding. The breakdown of party affiliations of those lawmakers who are charged with the election law violations, shows 59 for Millennium Democratic Party, 58 for opposition Grand National Party, and 8 for United Liberal Democrats.

The ruling MDP has one case more than the opposition GNP.

But, the prosecutors` final indictments of lawmakers to stand for trial were 15 for the GNP which outnumbered the 9 MDP members.

Such partiality is also reflected in the prosecutions of election campaign managers and accountants whose final verdict could result in loss of legislative seats of the persons they campaigned for.

The 5 GNP members who were charged with the violations, were all indicted for trial at the court, but only 8 out of 13 MDP members were finally prosecuted for trial.

Some suspicions were also raised about the case that the Central Election Management Committee

(CEMC) laid charges against 4 MDP lawmakers for their election spending violations, but the case against them was dropped.

The point is that such arithmetic presentation is not the sole ground of our quarrel on the prosecutors` partiality.

The seriousness of the issue here is that the prosecutors` decisions to indict the lawmakers varied according to their party affiliations despite the fact that the nature of their offences were exactly identical.

The CEMC`s decision to make an appeal Friday for the court review against the prosecutors` non-indictment of the 4 MDP members` spending violations is a clear indication that the prosecutors hardly acted fairly this time.

Furthermore, chairmen of the nation`s election management committees are all appointed by court judges.

As such, their decisions to lay charges or make appeals for court review against the prosecutors are reliable indicators that they were indictable cases despite the prosecutors` non-indictments.

In fact, this was shown in the the two recent appeal cases by the election management committees, where the courts ruled to overturn the prosecutors` non-indictments, and orderedthe two cases to be tried at the court.

The courts in charge of election cases made it clear in March that their hearings will be positive in those appeals cases for court review against the prosecutors` non-indictments.

Furthermore, the courts decided that they will, in principle, render a judgment to nullify their election if such appealed cases were found to be guilty of the election law violations by the court`s final judgment.

The only viable method to rectify our erroneous political behavior and lamentable election climate appears to be the judicial remedy by having our courts to adequately perform their proper duties as to correct them.