Mr Chen has been certified Taiwan's elected president

A court official said the hearing would be to discuss procedural matters, including the scope of a possible recount, and who would pay for it.

President Chen Shui-bian won the 20 March poll by just 0.2% of the vote.

Since then, the Kuomintang (KMT)-led opposition has complained about alleged irregularities, including the election-eve shooting of Mr Chen.

"Whether or not to recount, how to recount, and the extent of a recount is something that the tribunal needs to consult with the two sides about," High Court spokesman Wen Yao-yuan told reporters.

We have never rigged the vote nor have I attempted to stage any kind of incident Chen Shui-bian Read excerpts from the interview

It was not clear how long the three judges who are to hear the case will take to reach a decision, or when any possible vote recount would begin.

Mr Chen has agreed to a recount, which means that in theory the court could rule quite quickly.

But officials from Mr Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have yet to agree details of the recount with the KMT-led opposition, and it is these aspects which the court will be considering.

The court hearing stems from a KMT-led suit filed on Monday which called for the election result to be declared void.

POLL RESULTS Chen Shui-bian: 6,471,970 (50.11%) Lien Chan: 6,442,452 (49.89%) 337,297 invalid ballots Turnout: 80.28% Source: Central Election Commission Long-term damage Q&A: Election 'conspiracy'

The opposition has complained that the shooting of Mr Chen swung him an unfair sympathy vote. They have also questioned the high number of invalidated ballots cast.

Mr Chen, in his first broadcast interview since the election, told the BBC on Tuesday that he was confident the dispute would soon be resolved, and criticised his defeated opponents.

"What concerns me more is that some people refuse to face their own election failure," he said.

But in a further complication, the KMT-led opposition said it planned to file a separate legal challenge to the election result on Wednesday, because a controversial referendum was held on the same day as the presidential poll.

In the BBC interview, Mr Chen said constitutional reform was needed to modernise Taiwan's political institutions and enshrine certain rights.

He said that constitutional reform was "never a timetable for independence", and he said that anyone who confused the two subjects - a comment directed especially at China - was distorting the issue.

"We want to put the new constitution to a direct referendum of the people to decide whether they want to accept the new constitution or not, and this new constitution will have no bearing on the issue of unification or independence, nor will it change the status quo," he said.