A court this morning decided that the Attorney General should be a party in a case instituted by the Nationalist Party where it demanded a recount of the votes cast in the eighth and thirteen districts in the general election.

Justice Jacqueline Padovani said the Attorney General should be a party in the case to safeguard state interests.

The PN had argued that the Attorney General should not be involved while the Electoral Commission requested that the AG be called into the proceedings.

The PN, said its complaint was with the commission and not the Executive, to which the Attorney General was answerable.

The issue revolves around two mistakes in the counting process.

A packet of 50 votes for PN candidate Claudette Buttigieg (née Pace) was transferred to PN candidate Michael Asciak, who got eliminated resulting in the election of Labour’s Edward Scicluna instead.

In another alleged mistake, 10 votes belonging to PN candidate Frederick Azzopardi went missing, helping Labour’s Justyne Caruana get elected.

The mistakes, which are not being contested, would not have made a difference as such human errors are taken into account through well-researched mathematical formulae, the electoral commission is arguing.