The Lawyer Who Quit - NOT - & More Court Hearing Chaos

  As if there hasn't already been enough bizarre nonsense & confusion in this unnecessarily drawn-out saga, last Friday added another chapter to this Twilight Zone script.

  In the afternoon I got a notice from the Taipei District Court. As usual it was in Chinese and from what little I could make out appeared to be a change in the court hearing date. I took it to the court building to ask the staff to explain to me in English what it said. They confirmed my suspicions and told me the next hearing had been changed from March 31 to April 21...and the real killer was that the change had been requested by of all people....my former attorney who had unceremoniously quit a month ago!

  This is when things got really confused. I had already told the court staff a few weeks ago that my attorney had quit and I had no new lawyer. I reminded the clerk of this and asked her again if she was sure the change was requested by the departed attorney.  She remembered I told her the lawyer had quit and she was equally confused about the lawyer's actions. 

  After a phone call and some discussion with other staff, she explained further that the notice of the March 31 hearing had been sent to my former attorney. He replied to the court in writing that he would be out of Taiwan on March 31 and he asked the judge to reschedule the hearing for a date in April. All the while this was going on, neither the lawyer nor the Legal Aid Foundation bothered to inform me that the lawyer was still on my case and he had requested a change in the hearing date! Another bizarre twist in their accusations that I "disrespected my lawyers" when, in fact, this was just another example of how the lawyers (and the LAF) have treated me with callousness, disregard and disrespect, not I treating them this way.

  I made it clear to the court clerk that I could not attend a hearing on April 21 and that I didn't appreciate a change in the original March 31 date being made by a lawyer who had quit and didn't even inform me of any change in his status or that he had requested a change in the hearing date. Nobody bothered to check with me to see if I would be available on a different date!

To be continued... 

Here's the latest court hearing notice: