Question about Evidence and Court Cases

This is a really important point. When you’re seeking emergency relief, there isn’t time to have a trial with evidence. So the plaintiff puts in all the evidence they can by means of an affidavit. The respondent then opposes it, but purely on legal grounds, moving to strike as disclosing no cause of action (exact wording and name for the procedure will vary from court to court).

And on a defence motion to strike, the court assumes the truth of all the facts pled by the plaintiff, for the purposes of the motion. Defence has to take the position that, even assuming that every fact pled by the plaintiff is true, the claim cannot succeed on the law.

And that’s the test that the judge has to use: Assuming all the facts asserted by the plaintiff are true, is there a reasonable legal argument here? If the judge concludes that on the facts as pled, there is case made out at law, the judge dismisses.

And that, I gather is how a lot of the election cases went: even assuming all the facts are true and in favour of the plaintiff, there is no legal case here.

So it’s not the case that “if only we had been allowed to call evidence we would have won.” The decisions were “even if all the facts are as you say, you don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

It’s complicated, but basically it’s not true that no evidence was presented in court. Remember, there were a lot of cases. Around 60 if I recall correctly. Many cases were dismissed because of procedural issues, such as lack of standing. But in other cases evidence was presented and specifically found wanting.

I think that only the Texas lawsuit was dismissed for lack of standing. Most of them were heard and rejected as being wrong in law.

It is only necessary to present evidence when there is a dispute as to facts in the case. In most of them there were only legal challenges, which require detailed arguments, but not evidence.

The first rule in filing a petition for the redress of a grievance is two part, a) cause of action and b) relief.

The second rule is jurisdiction. If the Court doesn’t have jurisdiction then it doesn’t matter if the grievance is legitimate or not.