Divorce the issues

Divorce is a highly emotional issue and is bound to hit the headlines. However, it is too serious an issue to allow any shooting from the hip by political parties, especially on the EU Commission's proposals on divorce proceedings across state borders.

More fundamentally, the debate must not and, I repeat, must not be transformed into whether Malta should change its laws on divorce or not since it would be a totally different issue from what the EU Commission's proposals intend to achieve.

Consequently, Alternattiva Demokratika has to act very responsibly by keeping Malta's stand on the EU Commission's proposal separate and distinct from AD's political agenda of introducing divorce in Malta.

Statements such as "instead of boasting of its objections the government should withdraw its objections at once and initiate a serious public debate on the issue of divorce in Malta in line with its own social reality" can only confuse the electorate on what really is at stake. They are also, with due respect, out of point because there exists no impediment to the government or, for that matter, to AD itself to initiate a serious debate on the issue of divorce!

If anything, the lack of any such debate indicates the very opposite, namely that divorce is not being seen by our society as the answer to the "social problems" that, unfortunately, certainly exist and which must be tackled sooner rather than later. The issue at stake is one of national sovereignty.

It is our right as members of the EU and as a sovereign state to decide for ourselves whether or not we are to introduce divorce in Malta. This is a decision the EU organs cannot take for us.

Our government has to be very careful, therefore, to ensure that, being the only EU country not recognising divorce, Malta has the possibility of opting out from a harmonisation exercise involving countries recognising divorce proceedings should it result of prejudice to our marriage regime.

It is our right as citizens of a sovereign state within the EU to be governed by our laws on marriage. It is our government's duty to protect this right for us.

It is also our sovereign right as a state to ensure that should we ever freely decide to introduce divorce, it will be the Maltese electorate to decide for itself and directly what type of divorce laws govern it.

The government is, therefore, requesting clarifications on one fundamental issue concerning our rights, namely: If a Maltese national were to marry a person from another EU country in Malta, how would the harmonisation exercise affect the situation from what it is today?

This question is of course relevant to the other member states since it is important to keep in mind that within the EU there exist many types of divorce regimes. In some states, such as in Ireland, divorce is much more difficult to obtain than in other EU states.

So if, say, an Irish man is married to a French woman in Germany the question will be about harmonising the divorce regimes of Ireland, France or Germany in order to determine which divorce regime may be chosen by the party requesting divorce.

So why are the other member states not adopting an "opt-out" position? It is because obviously the question becomes far more delicate for Malta since it involves harmonising a non-divorce regime with others which recognise divorce.

So does not the Maltese government enjoy the sovereign right, as the only state within the EU not recognising divorce, to request, if need be, to be left out of an EU exercise in harmonising divorce proceedings involving the other member states all recognising divorce?

This is a question of sovereignty.

The government's stand gives totally the lie to all those who during the referendum and the 2003 general elections campaigns had advocated that entering the EU would mean that Malta would no longer remain a sovereign state; that we would lose our neutral status and that precisely the laws on abortion, divorce and God knows what other emotional issues would be introduced into Malta without our consent.

This, therefore, is not a pro-divorce or anti-divorce debate at all and it would be very irresponsible to attempt to transform it into one.