By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

The defense team for the impeached President Roh Moo-hyun will decide by Friday whether to attend the first impeachment hearing slated for March 30, Roh’s lawyer said on Tuesday.

The defense team also strongly criticized the National Election Commission (NEC) for taking an ambiguous attitude on its ruling on whether or not Roh violated the election law and gave the opposition parties a reason to initiate an impeachment motion against the president.

Last month, Roh said in a television interview that he intended to do everything ``within legal bounds’’ to help candidates he favors in April 15 general elections.

Opposition parties requested the NEC to review the remark, arguing it violated election laws.

In its report to the court, Roh’s defense team argued the NEC stirred up a controversy over impeachment by sending totally different opinions to the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and Chong Wa Dae.

In its letter to the MDP, the NEC said Roh ``violated election laws,’’ which became one of the major grounds for the small opposition party to joined hands with the Grand National Party (GNP) to impeach Roh on March 12.

But, Chong Wa Dae received a fundamentally different document, according to Roh’s lawyers. It wrote: ``The president’s remark cannot be seen as violating election rules. But we ask the president to be more cautious to keep the political neutrality.’’

The NEC, though being one of the key authorities in charge, reported to the Court on Monday that it had ``no opinion’’ to set forth on the affair. The court said it would request documents from the election supervisory body if needed.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr