(Adds PN, government, PL statements)

An Appeals Court this morning annulled a decision to grant the Nationalist Party an additional two seats in Parliament and decided that the hearing has to start from scratch.

The Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction in February ruled that the Nationalist Party had been deprived of two parliamentary seats as a result of a procedural error during the counting of votes in the last general election.

The mistake, according to the court, led to lack of proportionality, as prescribed by law, in that the difference in parliamentary seats belonging to the government and the Opposition should have been seven not nine.

The PN had requested a remedy to this “violation” of human rights.

In its decision today the Appeal Court argued that the Labour Party should have been included in the case from the very beginning.

Not to cause a snowball effect on laws enacted since the last election, especially by removing two elected members of Parliament and giving their seat to the next in line, Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani Grima had ordered the Electoral Commission to award two additional parliamentary seats to the two candidates fielded by the Nationalist Party who garnered the highest number of votes but were not elected, irrespective of the district they contested.

The PN had instituted court proceedings against the Electoral Commission and the Attorney General over mistakes in the vote counting process, which, it claimed, affected the outcome of the result.

This, it argued, would have meant that the PN should have won two more seats.

The issue revolves around a mistake in the counting process on the eighth district when a packet of 50 votes belonging to PN candidate Claudette Buttigieg was mistakenly transferred to PN candidate Michael Asciak. Dr Asciak was eliminated and Labour’s Edward Scicluna was elected.

On the 13th district, 10 votes belonging to PN candidate Frederick Azzopardi went missing and Labour’s Justyne Caruana was elected.

The government had immediately said it would be appealing the judgment.

JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED - PN

The Nationalist Party said today's decision meant that the Labour Party managed to waste time to delay justice.

The people were paying for this waste as they were still missing two Opposition MPs in Palriament.

Like the rest of the Maltese and Gozitans, the PL knew from the very beginning that there was a court case because of the vote counting mistake but it did all it could to lengthen the process as much as possible.

It was only after the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction gave its judgment that the Labour Party woke up and appealed to be included in the case.

As a consequence, more than two years have already been lost.

The PN said the Labour Party has today managed to manipulate the legal system to waste more time and challenge the people's democratic will.

OPPOSITION LEADER REACHES NEW LOWS - GOVERNMENT

In a statement, the government said the Opposition leader had to understand that he occupied a Constitutional post which put on him a responsibility towards the country and its main institutions.

The Court’s decision today was a serious and important one but the Opposition leader accused the Labour Party of manipulating the legal system, threatening the country’s democracy as a result.

This was completely unacceptable and the Opposition leader had reached new lows.

The government, as all other serious government, had always respected the Constitutional Court and abided by its decisions.

The least the Opposition leader could do was to be decent and show respect towards the highest organ in the country’s legal system.

UNPRECEDENTED ATTACKS - PL

The Labour Party also criticised the “unprecedented, regular attacks” by the Opposition leader on respected institutions such as the court when things did not go his way.
It said that, on the contrary, the PL did not say anything about the judgement and remained committed to respect court decisions, as all the people of Malta and Gozo, but not Simon Busuttil and his party, did.

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