The Nationalist Party today insisted that the Labour Party did not suffer any breach of rights when a Constitutional Court annulled a previous court’s decision to allocate extra parliamentary seats to the PN.

The case was first instituted by the PN following a mistake in the counting of votes in the general election 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 First Hall has ruled on the PN’s case and ordered the Electoral Commission to award two additional seats to the PN.

But the Constitutional Court later annulled the decision, upholding Labour’s argument that it should have been included in the case, and sent the case back to the First Hall, presided by Madam Justice Loraine Schembri Orland.

Last month, the PL filed a new claim objecting to that part of the Constitutional Court’s decision finding that the First Hall has jurisdiction over the case.

Today PL lawyer Toni Abela said the party wanted Madam Justice Schembri Orland to put the PN’s case on hold until the other case was decided.

Lawyer Ian Refalo, representing the Electoral Commission, said the second litigation was about the first and they were “inextricably linked”. A solution would be for the same judge to preside over both cases and hear them at the same time.

Attorney General Peter Grech agreed but Dr Abela warned that this could still lead to legal complications.

Lawyer Paul Borg Olivier, for the PN, said he had no objections to both cases being heard together.

He stressed that the PN did not believe that the PL’s rights had been breached since the Constitutional Court had ultimately ordered the case to be heard from scratch.

Madam Justice Schembri Orland will decide on the way forward on July 21.