Some 10 members of the government Cabinet turned up at the law courts this morning to hear an appeal filed by the Labour Party against an earlier court decision to allocate two new parliamentary seats to the Opposition.

Senior members of Cabinet, including Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, are observing the case in front of three judges, as part of the court audience.

Others attending the hearing include Finance Minister Edward Scicluna, Health Minister Chris Fearne, Economy Minister Chris Cardona, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis, Environment Minister Jose Herrera, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela, and parliamentary secretaries Chris Agius, Deborah Schembri and Roderick Galdes.

Former deputy leader Toni Abela, who had led the case on behalf of the Labour Party is not defending the appeal. Instead, the Labour Party is represented by Paul Lia and Robert Abela.

Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil is also present for the hearing.

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 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.

Lawyer Paul Borg Olivier was counsel to the Nationalist Party.