As for whether or not the right to vote should be limited at all, we have a genuine disagreement. You seem to think that any Maltese person should have the right to vote until they renounce citizenship (Note that they presently do not. See Art 57 of the Constitution). I think that residency or domicile are more appropriate connecting factors than citizenship or nationality because the former are freely chosen and based on a factual connection rather than a legalistic one. I do not think that somebody who has no connection to Malta, save for the accident of citizenship or nationality, should affect the results of elections. Both views are arguable and we will just have to agree to disagree. That being said, we both seem to agree that Article 57 of our Constitution needs to be amended because its present provisions limit the right to vote intolerably, and (in my view) because it is difficult to enforce.

Finally, please do not persist in labelling people. I am not a Varist supporter – I happened to think that, whatever his motivations may have been, he made an arguable case rather than a ridiculous argument. Nor am I an MLP apologist or anything of the sort. Like most readers of this blog and Daphne herself, I happen to think that George Abela would make the best leader of the MLP, but before I become a ‘George Abela supporter’ in your book of facile labels, I have serious reservations about him too: he was one of the prime movers in the ’96 campaign that gave us CET, pandering to the hunting lobby, Svizzera fil-Mediterran, the politicisation of criminal procedures, etc. That being said, he stands head and shoulders above the rest of the contenders in my book.

Why “can be limited” ? Why should they be? What are the Varist supporters afraid of? Maltese are Maltese, and that is it. And unless they wish to renounce their right to vote, Varist, and his supporters, should not hinder that right.

I have no intent into going into banking law. However you still seem to support this idea that taxation entitles you to vote. I have given you a clear example of how unfair this is (and impossible to regulate),when owning a bank acct. It was an example, but let’s change it to rent arising from property (or cnus). Does that make richer people more eligable than poor people?

As for the second part, I stand to be corrected, but as far as I know, being resident for the purposes of taxation does not mean that you actually pay taxes so it seems that you would not be more equal than your wife. Nor does it mean that having a bank account makes you resident in Malta for the purposes of taxation.

Start reading:
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b3ccpr.htm

and:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_icerd.htm (Article 5 C)

As you see voting is not only a human right, it is considered a duty.

You wrote:
“Of course any cut-off point is going to be arbitrary and open to criticism. ”

And I can immagine that it can be successfully challenged.

” Varist’s suggestion that the payment of taxes in Malta is an appropriate criterion to determine whether or not a person is sufficiently connected to Malta for the purposes of voting at a general election is not unreasonable either.”.

Those are your words. What I did was give you an example of a Maltese person paying 15% witholding tax in Malta on Bank interest. That automatically gives him the right to vote, according to you and Varist. Apart from the fact that it opens a new can of worms, inasmuch as it could be construed as limiting votes to those who are well off (an amusing concept coming from Varist, a socialist), it automatically excludes all those who do not have a way of being taxed. Let me give another example. I have an acct in my name, which is taxed. My wife hasn’t. So I am more equall (to Varist at least) than my wife.

I don’t think that the 15 year limit is a good idea simply because it is done in another country – I think that 15 years is a reasonable cut-off point to make the electoral register representative of people who are actually affected by the result of an election. Of course any cut-off point is going to be arbitrary and open to criticism.

As for your last question, I’m not a tax lawyer, but as I understand it paying some taxes in a country does not necessarily make you resident there any more than paying VAT does when you buy goods and services on holiday.

A Maltese remains a Maltese, unless he chooses otherwise. Who are you to deny a fundemental human right for a Maltese citizen? Mentioning things that happen in other countries does not make them a good idea.

BTW, let us assume that a Maltese person lives abroad for more than the limit. This person has no vote in his country of residence, and no vote in his country of origin. As far as being a voter, he is a non person, on the same footing as an illegal immigrant.

And what happens when a person lives abroad, but still pays Maltese tax on the income (rents, interest accrued from bank accts etc etc)arising from Malta. Can he still vote?

The point is that we do need to discuss the extent to which non-resident citizens may vote. My view is that we must draw the line somewhere. I think that the UK position that limits voting to persons who have been resident outside the UK for less than 15 years is reasonable. Residence in Malta for taxation purposes might be one of the easier ways of policing that 15-year limit.

I will throw in an assumption of my own making – Maltese living abroad keep themselves more informed about their homeland than when they are actually living in Malta. Their vote is therefore an informed one and driven by what I consider to be a noble sentiment – choosing what they believe is a government which will be for the good of the country they used to reside in and may very well return to. Why Justin and Jacques have come to the defence of someone who wants to deny so many Maltese that right and have attributed reasonable views to one which has no logic to it is baffling to me. Has your drive to criticise Daphne rendered you unable to distinguish a logical argument from a partisan one which is devoid of any reason?