diff --git a/lib/DOM/Element.php b/lib/DOM/Element.php
index e2d32f4..300c703 100644
--- a/lib/DOM/Element.php
+++ b/lib/DOM/Element.php
@@ -15,10 +15,15 @@ class Element extends \DOMElement {
         // Newer versions of the DOM spec have getAttribute return an empty string only
         // when the attribute exists and is empty, otherwise null. This fixes that.
         $value = parent::getAttribute($name);
-        if ($value === '' && !$this->hasAttribute($name)) {
+        if ($value === '' && !parent::hasAttribute($name)) {
+            // the PHP DOM does not acknowledge the presence of XMLNS-namespace attributes
+            foreach ($this->attributes as $a) {
+                if ($a->nodeName === $name) {
+                    return $a->value;
+                }
+            }
             return null;
         }
-
         return $value;
     }
 
@@ -29,7 +34,6 @@ class Element extends \DOMElement {
         if ($value === '' && !$this->hasAttributeNS($namespaceURI, $localName)) {
             return null;
         }
-
         return $value;
     }
 
diff --git a/tests/cases/TestDOM.php b/tests/cases/TestDOM.php
index a7027b9..d343dc9 100644
--- a/tests/cases/TestDOM.php
+++ b/tests/cases/TestDOM.php
@@ -288,20 +288,20 @@ class TestDOM extends \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase {
         $this->assertTrue($e->hasAttributeNS(Parser::XMLNS_NAMESPACE, "xlink"));
         $this->assertTrue($e->hasAttributeNS("fake_ns", "eek"));
         // perform retrival tests
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("blah"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("OOK"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("eek"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("ack"));
-        //$this->assertSame("eek", $e->getAttribute("ook"));
-        //$this->assertSame("http://example.com/", $e->getAttribute("xml:base"));
-        //$this->assertSame(Parser::XLINK_NAMESPACE, $e->getAttribute("xmlns:xlink"));
-        //$this->assertSame("ack", $e->getAttribute("ook:eek"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "blah"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "OOK"));
-        //$this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "ack"));
-        //$this->assertSame("eek", $e->getAttributeNS(null, "ook"));
-        //$this->assertSame("http://example.com/", $e->getAttributeNS(Parser::XML_NAMESPACE, "base"));
-        //$this->assertSame(Parser::XLINK_NAMESPACE, $e->getAttributeNS(Parser::XMLNS_NAMESPACE, "xlink"));
-        //$this->assertSame("ack", $e->getAttributeNS("fake_ns", "eek"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("blah"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("OOK"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("eek"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttribute("ack"));
+        $this->assertSame("eek", $e->getAttribute("ook"));
+        $this->assertSame("http://example.com/", $e->getAttribute("xml:base"));
+        $this->assertSame(Parser::XLINK_NAMESPACE, $e->getAttribute("xmlns:xlink"));
+        $this->assertSame("ack", $e->getAttribute("ook:eek"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "blah"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "OOK"));
+        $this->assertNull($e->getAttributeNS(null, "ack"));
+        $this->assertSame("eek", $e->getAttributeNS(null, "ook"));
+        $this->assertSame("http://example.com/", $e->getAttributeNS(Parser::XML_NAMESPACE, "base"));
+        $this->assertSame(Parser::XLINK_NAMESPACE, $e->getAttributeNS(Parser::XMLNS_NAMESPACE, "xlink"));
+        $this->assertSame("ack", $e->getAttributeNS("fake_ns", "eek"));
     }
 }