Court ruling on voting rights stressed

It was not for the European Commission to interfere in the functioning of Maltese justice, European Enlargement Commissioner Gunther Verheugen said in reply to a question in the European parliament about attempts at voter elimination in Malta.

To a question by Monica Frassoni, president of the Green Group, on the Malta Labour Party's applications to strike people off the electoral register, Mr Verheugen said the right to challenge voting lists and election results was inherent in any transparent democratic system.

However, he noted that the court handling a challenge by a political party of a citizen's voting right should take into account the interpretations of the Maltese Constitutional Court which had ruled that the word "residence" did not mean physical presence in the country but included and allowed periodic absences from the country.

Harry Vassallo, the chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika and Arnold Cassola's legal adviser in the case in which the ruling was given, said Mr Verheugen's reply reinforced the rule of law as proposed by the Constitutional Court.

"The courts are in these very days giving judgment on 1,684 Maltese citizens. It is the duty of the courts to ensure that - with regard to the national election register - the definition of residence is the one expressed by the Constitutional Court judgment in the Cassola case and not the previous restrictive interpretations," said Dr Vassallo.

"Moreover, the courts and the Electoral Commission have to make it extremely clear to one and all that any Maltese voter resident in one of the 25 countries of the EU who has been struck off the national register has his/her full voting rights guaranteed for European elections and is to be included in the European electoral register".