It was “essential” the Attorney General was part of a case instituted by the Nationalist Party over counting at the last election, a judge ruled yesterday.

Ten votes went missing

Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani said that although the case was about mistakes in the counting process, the presence of the Attorney General was essential to safeguard the State’s interests.

She gave the decree in the case instituted by the PN against the Electoral Commission.

The party is claiming breach of human rights when counting mistakes gave the Labour Party a nine-seat majority.

In the first mistake, the PN is arguing that a packet of 50 votes belonging to its candidate, Claudette Buttigieg (née Pace), was transferred to another PN candidate, Michael Asciak, who was eliminated, resulting in the election of Labour candidate Edward Scicluna instead.

In the other case, the party says that 10 votes belonging to PN candidate Frederick Azzopardi went missing, helping Labour’s Justyne Caruana get elected.

The Electoral Commission argued that the mistakes, which are not being contested, would not have made a difference because such human errors were taken into account through well-researched mathematical formulae.

The PN insisted, however, that the Attorney General was answerable to the Executive while the Electoral Commission was a constitutionally appointed body independent of the Executive.

Bringing the Attorney General into the case would result in conflict of interest, it said.