The Attorney General has appealed a court judgment that cleared a businessman of threatening his employees in an attempt to make them vote for the Nationalist Party in the last general election.

The owner of Papillon Caterers, Pierre Bartolo, had been acquitted of threatening employees Kristylee Bezzina and Anthony Zammit after a court ruled the prosecution did not prove its case.

The matter is the only case to reach the law courts following a campaign by Labour Party Deputy Leader Anġlu Farrugia in which he presented up to 200 alleged vote-buying cases to the police for investigation.

Dr Farrugia was critical of the acquittal in Parliament, which led the Nationalist Party to ask for his resignation, saying his actions were as "dangerous and seriously lacking in respect towards democracy, human dignity and the judiciary's autonomy".

However, the Office of the Attorney General argued in its appeal that the court had made a mistaken or incomplete appreciation of the evidence and had not allowed the prosecution to cross-examine a key witness, Ms Bezzina, on the basis of a statement she had previously made.

In the proceedings, a police inspector said the accused had allegedly told his employees that if Labour were elected, they were not to turn up for work.

Mr Zammit separately alleged that the company's chef Edwin Cioffi had given him a lift to the polling booth and asked him to take a picture of his vote once in the booth, which would in itself be illegal.

Mr Cioffi had denied this claim when he testified. Moreover, the court declared that the fact that somebody encouraged somebody else to vote and provided transport for this purpose did not constitute a corrupt practice and this was actually something which even the electoral office and the political parties did.

However, the Attorney General said this did not hold water since Mr Bartolo had gone beyond simply encouraging another person to vote.

The appeal was filed by lawyer Leonard Caruana.