The Kiribati Court of Appeal was sitting in Auckland.

In a written judgment, Sir Michael Hardie-Boys said the election could go ahead on May 9.

General elections were held in December and a presidential election in February -- which saw incumbent Teburoro Tito narrowly returned to office.

However, Tito had insufficient support in the 42-member Maneaba ni Maungatabu or parliament and on the first day's sitting he lost a confidence vote 21 to 19.

The court debate was about whether the vote should be based on all the seats, 42, or just on the votes of those members present in the house.

Hardie-Boys ruled that Kiribati law meant "member" referred to individuals, not to seats.

Kiribati runs two-stage elections with the first round of voting for members of parliament and the second for the election of president by the MPs. The president is both head of state and government.

But as Kiribati's constitution prohibits individuals from being president for more than three terms Tito, whose third term lasted one day, will not be able to stand again.

A major issue during the December elections was the presence of a Chinese satellite spy on the main atoll of Tarawa.

With a population of 96,000 people, about half of Kiribati's voters are resident on the overcrowded southern part of Tarawa.

The rest are scattered over 3.5 million square kilometres (one million square miles) of Pacific that used to be divided by the Equator and the International Dateline until Tito's government moved it.

The Micronesian nation portrays itself as a victim of global-warming and rising sea levels, but its capital atoll of Tarawa, is a testament to the perils of overcrowding and basic pollution.

Its white sands, which in 1943 saw US Marines storm ashore in one of World War Two's iconic battles, are now stained with raw human sewage and trash.

SPACE.WIRE