Letters | Sunday, 10 May 2009

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No level playing field for voters

Excellent article on EU voters being disenfranchised. All very muddled. I went to the council office in March after seeing the advertisements informing people they needed to register. As my wife was on the register for the last EU elections, I assumed naturally that she would be still on the register, never having been informed she had been removed from it, or that she was only on the register for one election only.
Nevertheless, I thought I would check the register, only to be told by the council that the new register was not out yet. But I did check the register they had and she was of course still on it. It came therefore as a surprise to receive a notice from the electoral office to say she had been removed and given only a few days to appeal. This she did, filled in forms at the Evans building, and then told to take a paper to the Law Courts. There she handed over the paper to a clerk but not given any receipt, or asked for any identity (so why could not a messenger have taken all the day’s papers to the Courts?) Net result is that she is none the wiser as to whether she will or will not be back on the register, as is her right as an EU citizen.
Curiously enough, I, as a Maltese citizen (always) had the right to vote in all elections (national and EU) whilst I resided in England from 1977 to 2003 (I was even a Parish Councillor). My wife, however, has only been entitled to vote for one EU election and one local council election. This despite the fact that she is also a recipient of a Maltese pension and has to submit tax returns annually. So much for ‘no taxation without representation’. Clearly, it is not a level playing field as far as Malta is concerned despite this being the objective of the EU. Equal rights for all.

Anthony de Trafford
Attard

I HEARTFULLY sympathise with the indignation expressed in letter pages and comment boxes of the local press by a number of non-Maltese EU citizens residing in Malta, from a total of around 900 who have had a fundamental human right snatched out of their hands, their names having been unjustly and illegally struck off the electoral roll for the coming EP elections.
Maltese nationals residing in other EU member states have the right to vote locally in the coming EP elections, and many Maltese will indeed be exercising this right. The chauvinist, narrow-minded argument that foreigners have no business in Maltese politics and socio-political discourse does not hold, because:
1. This is a European (as opposed to national) election, taking place in a community of 27 countries – a community built on 4 fundamental freedoms, including freedom of movement and freedom of establishment; and
2. From a more everyday, bread-and-butter point of view, foreign residents in Malta are an integral part of the local and national community, contributing to the economy and to social welfare as honestly as their Maltese counterparts, not to mention of course the taxes they pay to the national coffers.
And here’s a third reason, of which the authorities should quickly take note:
3. According to European Community law, and more precisely to Article 9(4) of Council Directive 93/109/EC laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for citizens of the Union residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals: “Community voters who have been entered on the electoral roll shall remain thereon, under the same conditions as voters who are nationals, until such time as they request to be removed or until such time as they are removed automatically because they no longer satisfy the requirements for exercising the right to vote.”
This law can be easily found on the eur-lex.eu database, in all 23 official EU languages, including Maltese.
In other words, the Maltese Electoral Commission is openly in breach of a law passed by the same supranational entity whose decisions the EP candidates are seeking to influence, in the name of the citizens they represent – that is, not only their co-nationals, but all EU residents within their member state. The natural corollary may be to ask: will a European election carried out in breach of its own rules be considered valid?

Antoine Cassar
Luxembourg-Ville
Luxembourg

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