Divorce, injustices and assessments

I was heavily criticised by conservative quarters in our country for stating that I am in favour of divorce and committed to presenting legislation on the subject once there is a Labour government, while granting our parliamentarians a free vote. I do not mind that criticism since it is high time for our society to wake up to reality.

I am against back-room divorce and a system that favours those who have the means to get around the present legal system. We have to legislate.

Then came the Social Policy Minister who went on record saying that time is ripe for a discussion.

Although he was non-committal on whether he favours the introduction of divorce legislation, he sounded quite sensible in his approach. I do not know whether he had cleared such a statement with the Prime Minister. The latter's reaction felt lukewarm. He said that he thinks time has come for a discussion. The Prime Minister stopped short of stating his position on the subject, even though last February 24 he went on record saying that "divorce is no solution".

At the same time, we have a Justice Minister whose spokesman - when faced with a pan-European initiative on cross-border divorce cases - was unambiguous in stating that "Malta would make sure that divorce would not form part of the Maltese legal system".

The Ombudsman spelt out clearly what was clear from the very beginning for all to see: The state should acknowledge and, whenever circumstances so warrant, implement decisions by the Tribunal for the Investigation of Injustices.

Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino pointed out, in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, that "the principles of fair and proper administration in the public sector require each body, whether set up or not under the terms of the Constitution, to accept, respect and implement decisions taken by other authorities as long as these decisions are within the limits of their respective competence and their specific jurisdiction".

During the past decade, the government did not implement a number of recommendations made by the tribunal. It justified the lack of implementation on essentially technical grounds. Thus, the plaintiffs ended up suffering a double injustice.

Since my election as Labour leader, I made it clear that there needs to be the political will to solve these cases. Former PN general secretary Joe Saliba agreed that this should be the case. His successor made a similar statement. Parallel to the discussions on the strengthening of our democracy, we have engaged in talks with government to tackle these cases. The first signals showed that, after a decade of impasse, there might be the will to close this chapter.

The Ombudsman's opinion gives further political and moral justification for the authorities to take the necessary steps and solve these cases.

Labour stated that a socio-economic impact assessment should have been commissioned prior to the government's decision to hike the utility surcharge to a staggering 95 per cent.

The first reaction came from the minister responsible for this sector - and it seems every other sector - who presented us with a couple of tables and diagrams. He stated that that was the impact assessment.

After just a couple of days he was contradicted by the Prime Minister, who said that a socio-economic impact assessment was under way. While pointing out the incongruity, one does have to question the rationale of commissioning an impact assessment after taking a decision.

However, the cherry on the cake was the reaction by the Finance Minister, who described our appeal for such an assessment as a "populist call that does not provide any solution"! Thus, we have it directly from a main Cabinet member that he thinks that impact assessments are useless. A far cry from the repeated calls for such studies by the then Nationalist leader and his eventual successor back in 1998.

The Finance Minister replied to my criticism on the way the government is handling the change in the vehicle registration tax and basically said that everything is in hand and on schedule.

Maybe the minister is not interested in what I have to say, but may I draw his attention to the fact that the Association of Car Importers and the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises - GRTU differ on his stand.

The government was obliged to overhaul the system by March 31, 2008. It then said it would do so by the end of June. Then it said it would do so before the budget. Now it is indicating that it will launch the reform in the Budget Speech. All this is creating unnecessary uncertainty.

Let us at least hope that the new system is worth the wait.

Dr Muscat is leader of the Malta Labour Party and a member of the European Parliament.

www.josephmuscat.com