The President’s writ that set in motion the divorce referendum process had to be published immediately and could not have been withheld for any reason, according to the legal advice given to the Electoral Commission by its lawyer Ian Refalo.

The commission had been discussing the possibility of delaying publication of the President’s writ to enable those who turned 18 in the past six months to vote in the referendum to be held on May 28.

On Tuesday, Prof. Refalo wrote to the commission saying in essence that the writ was an order issued by the country’s President and could not be delayed. The letter, seen by The Times, emerged as the two major parties squabbled over who was to blame for cheating 2,800 youngsters out of their vote.

On Thursday, the Labour Party accused Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi of denying these people the right to vote by using his electoral commissioners to publish a referendum writ on Wednesday.

This means the referendum must be based on October’s electoral register rather than a fresh one which would have been released later this month to include all those who turned 18 between October 1 and March 31.

Labour argued that the commissioners who represent it had proposed a solution that would have allowed these new 18-year-olds to participate. The party would have moved a parliamentary resolution that would have allowed the referendum writ to be published as late as April 18.

However, before Labour’s statement was released, Prof. Refalo had already given the commission his legal advice: although the law did not stipulate the exact timing for the publication of the President’s writ, this should be published as soon as it was signed by the President.

“While delaying the publication of the writ is not legally incorrect, it is not desirable since I believe that once the commission has received a declaration from the President, which is nothing but an order from the President for the holding of an election or a referendum, the commission should immediately take action, rather than procrastinate,” Prof. Refalo said in his letter.

He also said “it would be wise if the writ should be published as soon as possible after having received it”. Prof. Refalo’s legal advice went against Labour’s proposal to delay the publication of the President’s referendum ­writ through the parliamentary ­resolution.

Labour’s motion for a referendum on divorce, approved by Parliament on March 16, stipulated that the President’s writ had to be signed within 15 days, therefore not later than March 31. The writ was published on March 30, a day after the commission received legal advice to publish it as soon as it is received.

The Nationalist Party had blame Labour for the “mess” that deprived 2,800 young people of the right to vote. It said Labour admitted that its commissioners proposed to “play around” with the electoral law to postpone the publication of the writ.