Updated - Adds PL reaction, Busuttil call for seats to be allocated immediately -
The Nationalist Party will be getting another two seats in Parliament following a decision by the first hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction today.
The Labour Party will be retaining all its seats.
The government in a statement said it would be appealing the decision on the basis that the majority which Labour achieved in the last general election equated to a difference of nine seats in parliament, not seven.
Judge Jacqueline Padovani Grima declared that the shortcomings in the electoral process led to an incorrect result with respect to the representation of the electorate’s wishes and ordered the Electoral Commission to declare as elected, the two PN candidates with the next highest vote count within one month from today.
In a court application, the Nationalist Party had insisted it lost the election by seven parliamentary seats not nine and requested a remedy to this “violation” of human rights.
It argued its candidates Claudette Buttigieg (née Pace) and Frederick Azzopardi failed to be elected from the eighth and 13th districts respectively due to errors in the counting process.
A packet of 50 votes for her had been mistakenly transferred to PN candidate Michael Asciak who got eliminated, resulting in the election of Labour’s Edward Scicluna instead, the party argued.
In the case of Mr Azzopardi, 10 votes went missing in the counting process, helping Labour’s Justyne Caruana win a seat.
The errors, the PN said, had been acknowledged by the Electoral Commission.
The judgment was welcomed by the Nationalist Party with representatives seen patting each other on the back and shaking hands.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil welcomed the court's decision.
"Delighted that Court granted PN two more seats in Parliament. Democracy won the day," he said in a tweet.
In a statement this afternoon, the government said it will be appealing the decision. It said that, in the last election, the Labour Party obtained 167,533 votes while the Nationalist Party got 132,426 votes. This clearly meant a nine seat majority according to the proportionality principle.
The government said it felt the judgement removed the first count proportionality reflected in the 2013 results.
PL: PROPORTIONALITY MUST BE RESPECTED
In a reaction, the Labour Party said the court’s decision today did not change the fact that it won the last general election with a majority of 36,000 votes, the biggest majority since Independence.
It said proportionality as required by the Constitution translated that majority to a difference of nine seats in parliament.
The court had however decided differently today. There were firm grounds for the decision to be appealed.
The PL argued that had the court’s reasoning been applied to the last legislature, the PN government would have lost its majority in parliament, even though it won a small majority of votes in the general election.
“While the Labour Party respects the court, it also respects the right for this decision to be appealed from so that the will of the people can be safeguarded,” the party said.
BUSUTTIL: EXTRA SEATS SHOULD BE GIVEN IMMEDIATELY
Meanwhile in a press conference in the afternoon, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said justice had been served and the PN should get its two new seats immediately.