The Labour Party today filed a new constitutional application over the issue of whether the PN should be credited with an additional two seats in Parliament, and asked for its case to be given precedence.

The application was filed just before a court was about to start rehearing the original case after, last month, the Constitutional Court overturned the decision of the First Hall, which had decided that the PN had been deprived of two parliamentary seats as a result of a procedural error during vote-counting in 2013.  

In its new application, against the Attorney General, the permanent secretary within the Justice Ministry, the PN, the Electoral Commission, the Law Courts’ registrar and the MPs involved in the counting incident the PL objected to a part of the Constitutional Court’s decision in which it found that the First Hall had jurisdiction over the case.

The PL said that the court deprived the PL  - which had not been included in the first case - of making its arguments on that point and this was in breach of its right to a fair hearing on that matter of jurisdiction. It called on the court to provide a remedy to this breach of rights. 

Lawyers Toni Abela and Lydia Abela signed the application.