Constitutional Court judgement: two seats to the Nationalists, but Labour gets to keep its two

The Constitutional Court ruled this morning in a case that dragged on for almost four years, since the last general election. The Labour Party has fought the case all the way, refusing to relinquish the two seats it gained in parliament at the expense of the Nationalist Party as a result of a miscount of votes.

In summary, Nationalist MPs Claudette Buttigieg and Frederick Azzopardi should have been elected in an earlier count than they were, which would have seen them displace Justyne Caruana and Joe Debono Grech, who got the seats instead, for the Labour Party. The seats now held by Buttigieg and Azzopardi would then have gone to other Nationalist candidates.

True justice cannot be served at this late stage, four years into the legislature, because for all this time Labour has had two seats it shouldn’t have had, while the Nationalists have had two seats fewer than they should have had. So Muscat has had, all along, a nine-seat majority when he should have had a five-seat majority, with all the arrogance attendant on that.

Also, and this point cannot be overemphasised enough, two Labour candidates lucked out wrongly with four and now five years of a member of parliament’s salary, perks, and legislator’s status and power that they shouldn’t have had, while two Nationalist candidates, who are unknown so far, were wrongly deprived of all that.

But the nearest thing to justice would have been the obvious ruling that the Labour Party is to lose the two seats it gained wrongfully, and the Nationalist Party is to get them instead. But the Constitutional Court’s ruling this morning sought to emulate Solomon and failed: the Labour Party gets to keep its two seats, while the Nationalist Party gains two. There is no precedent or system to work this out: you can’t simply stick seats into the mix; they have to based on votes, properly counted.

And what it means in the end is that another two people will be put on the state payroll, by order of the Constitutional Court, to add to the thousands which the Labour government has put on the payroll already. The public will have to pay, the benefits to the public are negligible – at least, I can’t see them from where I’m standing – and the process of working out who is going to get those seats and how is going to distract the Nationalist Party further from what should be its main objective now.

The government/Labour Party, meanwhile, actually has the nerve to say that it is disappointed with the Constitutional Court’s ruling.