Courts | Lawyers shocked after witness in IPIM trial resorts to PowerPoint presentation

Investigators from the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) gave their testimony at yesterday’s court hearing in the corruption case involving the former president of the Investment and Trade Promotion Institute (IPIM). But lawyers were left astonished after one witness was permitted to use a PowerPoint presentation during his questioning.

Former IPIM leaders Jackson Chang and Glória Batalha Ung stand accused of irregularities in the granting of residency permits for investors and skilled professionals. More than 20 other defendants are also involved in the case, charged with other crimes including bribery.

Yesterday’s trial consisted of nine defendants. The highest-profile suspect, Jackson Chang, was not present.

Before the trial officially started, the plaintiff and the defendants had a disagreement regarding a PowerPoint document that a CCAC witness intended to use during his testimony.

All of the lawyers of the nine defendants objected to the use of PowerPoint as a tool for witness testimony on the grounds that the said PowerPoint presentation was not part of the recorded evidence, so its use would not be in accordance with the law.

The lawyers believe that the PowerPoint presentation would constitute “testimony prepared in advance” and that the witness should simply answer the questions from the prosecutors, lawyers and judges, instead of presenting a well-prepared document which has not been recorded as evidence.

However, while arguing in favor of the legitimacy of the PowerPoint presentation, the prosecutor argued that rather than deeming the presentation inadmissible on principle, it would be more suitable to allow the witness to use the file and, should the presentation be found misleading, the defendant’s representative scould object.

The defendants’ lawyers continued to object, with one lawyer remarking that, “it is the first time in my career of over 20 years that I have experienced such a situation,” in which the witness was not questioned in accordance with the indictment, but instead presented a PowerPoint document.

However, the prosecutor claimed that the presentation was purely for the purposes of assisting the plaintiff to demonstrate the evidence.

The judge eventually accepted the argument of the prosecutor and approved the use of the PowerPoint presentation. 

The first CCAC witness then began using his PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate the evidence. All of the evidence included in the media document has been included as evidence in the indictment already.

The witness participated in the entire process of analyzing evidence of Jackson Chang’s case and was specifically responsible for testifying about the CCAC’s conclusions.

The witness presented three files relating to three immigration applicants who were also hired by one defendant, surnamed Ng.

The documents proved the employment relationship between Ng and the other three defendants, including evidence of salary payments.

Through their employment, the other three defendants applied to immigrate to Macau under the immigration policies for skilled people.

During his presentation, the witness said that the CCAC discovered that the three defendants were supposed to spend between five and six days per week in Macau because of their jobs. However, they were scarcely in the city. 

During the witness’ presentation, the prosecutors rarely asked questions regarding the case, except to remind the witness to always clarify the pages of the evidence for the convenience of the Chinese-to-Portuguese translation for the Portuguese-speaking lawyers.

Later, the court judge noticed a specific inconvenience regarding the evidence being discussed and the presiding judge requested that this specific PowerPoint witness become the eventual last witness to be called by the prosecution.

At this point, one of the defendant’s lawyers asked the prosecution to provide the contents of the PowerPoint presentation to them in advance so that they could check the evidence that was used.

However, the judge denied the request, saying that the PowerPoint document contains evidence that is already included in the indictment.