Updated | Court dismisses Labour’s request to appeal its decision

The court has rejected a request to suspned proceedings and a sentence will be delivered after Easter

Madame Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland has ruled that the Labour Party would not be permitted to appeal her decision.

The court had decided that the PL would not be granted more time to summon its final witness, Anthony Gellel from the Electoral Commission, who had not been successfully notified for the last sitting.

Labour’s deputy leader Toni Abela this morning filed an application challenging last Friday's decree.

When the sitting resumed in the afternoon, the court said it was amazed by the assertion made in the application that the PL could have summoned the witness today.

Former PN secretary general Paul Borg Olivier, appearing for the PN in his legal capacity, argued that the court should grant this permission only if it felt it just.

In order to do this, the court must analyse the case from the time the Labour party joined the case, he said.

The court had fixed the date for the last witness evidence of the PL eight weeks before, he said.

Looking at the timeline of the case since the PL was granted legal standing in the case, Borg Olivier said it was clear that its intention was to draw out proceedings as much as possible.

He told the court that he did not think it would be just for an appeal to be allowed when the appellant had all the time in the world to notify its witnesses. 29th January was the cut off date for the last opportunity for it to summon its witnesses, he added.

Furthermore, Gellel could have been notified through other, unofficial means.

The court rejected the request to suspend proceedings.

It also noted that the cut off date had passed and the time dedicated to the sitting had not been utilised well. The court said that the PL had not done what it should or could have to notify Gellel and had failed to explain the relevance of the witness to the case.

The case was put off for April, with a sentence to be delivered after Easter.

In an earlier sitting, the court accused the Labour Party of "putting the cart before the horse" by requesting it suspend the proceeded pending the outcome of a decision of the Constitutional Court.

Last May, the First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction had delivered a judgement on the issue, but this was subsequently declared null, due to the fact that the Labour Party had not been included as a party to proceedings.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had appealed the Electoral Commission's decision to grant the Nationalist Party an additional two seats in February 2015, after the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction declared that the PN should take two additional seats to hold 32 seats in parliament, with Labour retaining its 39 seats.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil had immediately called on the Electoral Commission to respect the court’s decision but the judgement was appealed.

Following May’s judgement, the PN filed the case anew.