Crucifixes in schools

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi told Parliament yesterday that the Maltese government had asked to intervene in the hearings of the European Court of Human Rights which was considering an appeal filed by Italy against a decision to remove crucifixes from public places.

In its first decision, the Strasbourg-based court of the Council of Europe had upheld a request by a Finnish woman, Soile Lautsi, for the removal of crucifixes in a school attended by her children in Italy. The court had found that the display of crucifixes in Italian schools breached the rights of non-Catholic families.

In a statement to the House, Dr Gonzi said Malta had already made it clear that it disagreed with this decision.

"On a point of principle, we insist that a country which has upheld particular values and traditions for centuries should not be obliged to change them just because an individual objects to them. Indeed, the social and cultural characteristics of society should be respected for as long as the people of such a society so decide.

"A court which decides otherwise would not be showing sensitivity to such aspects and would be taking the wrong direction," Dr Gonzi said.

Malta was not ashamed of its identity and felt that a society which lost the values on which it was built, lost itself.

Dr Gonzi said he was certain that the people of Malta in their absolute majority did not want crucifixes to be removed from classrooms and other public areas.

Concluding, he said that therefore, now that the appeal filed by Italy was being heard, the government felt it should ask the court to allow it to intervene in order to lend its support and present legal arguments in order to help overturn the decision of the first court.

Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat said the opposition had declared way back in November that it shared the government's views. A secular society did not mean suppressing religion and the country's culture.

He said that the government's sentiment was the sentiment of the whole of Parliament.