The Electoral Commission has reversed its decision to strike 945 voters off the electoral register, after being told its move was illegal.
The Commission informed the Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi of its decision yesterday and also justified why it had struck off the voters.
It said its intention was to update the register to ensure that foreigners who left the island after 2004 would be allowed to vote in their own countries, since EU citizens can only be on the register of one country.
The commission also argued that the relevant EU directive was not reproduced faithfully in Maltese law since the latter included a proviso that was not part of the original directive.
The Commission quoted the proviso as saying that EU nationals can only be struck off an electoral register if they ask for it or if they are no longer legally eligible, through a court order, for instance.
The Commission published an advert giving such citizens till the end of March to apply to be reinstated in the register. Many failed to see the advert and 945 people, who did not re-apply because they were not aware of the procedure, got struck off.
But this decision was criticised by the attorney general and the European Parliament office, causing Dr Gonzi to call for their reinstatement and giving the Commission until yesterday to propose a remedy.
In an official opinion, the Attorney General said that the procedure adopted by the Commission to strike off these voters was illegal under both European and Maltese law.
In yesterday's letter to Dr Gonzi, the Commission said that in September it had met with the head of the EP office in Malta Julian Vassallo and actually showed him a copy of the advert, to which he did not object.
But Dr Vassallo categorically denied having ever approved the Commission's advert.
"I welcome wholeheartedly the reinstatement of those who were illegally struck off the register but I must say that the Commission has completely misrepresented the discussion we had in September. My office was in fact complaining that non-Maltese EU citizens who had come to Malta since 2004 were not given enough time to apply to be part of the electoral register."
Dr Vassallo accused the Commission of trying to shift the blame onto the EP office instead of having the humility to admit its own mistakes.
When asked whether the Commission should resign on this issue, Dr Vassallo said it was not his office's place to call for resignations.
The chief electoral commissioner Edward Gatt said that the Commission would "definitely not" be resigning, since this was merely the result of a different interpretation of a number of very complex technical and legal articles that had not been properly streamlined.
He did not go into the merits of statements made about Dr Vassallo but stuck to what the Commission had said.
The Commission's decision to reinstate the struck-off voters was welcomed by the Nationalist Party and Alternattiva Demok-ratika who both said they were satisfied with the fact that those who were legally eligible to vote would be able to do so.