Raphael Vassallo In what is beginning to look like an exercise in generating the maximum confusion possible over European voting rights, non-Maltese EU citizens who re-applied for inclusion in the 2009 register have now begun to receive their individual court summons – in a language they can’t understand.
MaltaToday has received copies of the summons, and can confirm these were issued only in Maltese without any corresponding translation in English, despite the fact that both languages are constitutionally recognised as “official”, and that the list of intended recipients was known beforehand to consist entirely in foreigners.
As a result, the vast majority were unable to decipher their court summons: a fact which legal sources claim may further undermine Malta’s credibility among the diplomatic representations of those European citizens – mainly German, British and Dutch – who are currently being made to fight for their right to vote on June 6.
“If applicants lose their case simply because they were not properly informed of proceedings, they could afterwards claim to have been deprived of the right to a fair hearing,” one lawyer, who declined to be identified, told this newspaper.
This latest development comes hard on the heels of last Friday’s confirmation by the Attorney General that the Electoral Commission had violated local and international law by removing nearly 1,000 enrolled foreign voters from the European election register published on 20 April.
Responding to a request for advice by the Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi – who in turn was asked to intervene by the local representation of the European Parliament – AG Dr Silvio Camilleri declared that the Commission was bound to keep the voters on the register until 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.
Gonzi has since written to the Chief Electoral Commissioner Edgar Gatt, requesting recommendations for a possible solution by not later than tomorrow morning.
‘Very worried’ about 6th seat In two separate press conferences yesterday, the AG’s opinion was welcomed by both Dr Julian Vassallo, head of the European Parliament’s Malta representation, as well as Green Party chairman Arnold Cassola, who has been campaigning for the reinstatement of the disenfranchised voters over the past weeks.
“We are not asking the Chief Electoral Commissioner to resign,” Cassola said. “But we do expect him to apologise to the 944 voters who have been discriminated against, humiliated and inconvenienced by the Commission’s hard-headed refusal to see reason.”
Cassola also questioned why it had to take the intervention of the Prime Minister, under pressure from the EP representation and individual embassies, to rectify a situation which the Electoral Commission had been informed about weeks ago.
“It is not acceptable that the Commissioner first refutes what is blatantly clear to one and all, and then obstinately persists in error until the Prime Minister is forced to intervene,” he said.
Cassola also thanked the media and the local European institutions for their interest in the matter, singling out Dr Vassallo of the EP representation for his intervention, as well as MaltaToday for given prominence to the issue.
“This was a concrete example of how the European Union works for the benefit of the ordinary citizen,” he said.
Dr Julian Vassallo welcomed the AG’s recommendations but acknowledged it “will not be easy” to rectify the mistake, especially considering that the deadline for objections is now over.
“We cannot exclude the possibility of a specific law to enable the registration of these voters,” Vassallo said, though he stopped of making any direct recommendations.
However, the EP representation took the opportunity to express its concern about the allocation of Malta’s sixth seat in the European parliament, should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified in October.
“Now is the time to decide on a mechanism for the allotment of Malta’s sixth seat,” he said yesterday. “It is in fact very already late in the day – there are only four weeks to go for the election, and it is still not clear how the sixth seat will be determined. This issue has to be decided before the election, and not afterwards when the votes have already been counted.”
“We are very worried about this issue,” Vassallo said. “Voters cannot be expected to enter the polling booths without knowing how their vote will afterwards be interpreted.”
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