In his article on cohabitation, divorce and justice (May 25) Martin Scicluna continues with his panzer thrust for the introduction of divorce but makes no similar thrust for "the provision of state mediation, counselling and reconciliation services" to marital couples in distress in spite of fleetingly mentioning these services in his long report on re-marriages. In three successive articles in The Times lately, he clearly assumed that (all?) marriages in distress "have irretrievably broken down" and the solution is a crusade for the dissolution of marriage. He is wrong to make that assumption.
His long report, through The Today Public Policy Institute (TPPI) of which he was the lead author, is named Re-Marriage After Legal Separation. Clearly, if his focus is on re-marriages he could not be talking seriously on the need for reconciliation services for litigating married couples. He seems to be obsessed with the idea that the solution to "marital breakdown" is divorce. In fact he says (March 3): "As legislators, members of Parliament have a duty and a responsibility to ease the human suffering caused by marital breakdown"... so they should introduce legislation on divorce. Surely local psychologists, psychotherapists and family therapists have different views on these matters. Surely marriage counsellors know better.
Instead of being pushed to go for divorce, married couples in distress should be empowered, as of right, by state support services, to reconcile their differences. This also out of justice to themselves, their marriage, their children and society.
Unfortunately, litigating married couples are not getting the reconciliation services they deserve when they go to the Family Court. Now, to add insult to injury, they are being brainwashed with the idea that the only solution to their marriage difficulties is to resort to divorce. So let's have it presto, according to Mr Scicluna. Injured and wounded people are led first to hospitals not to cemeteries.
When ex-USA President Bill Clinton was unfaithful to his wife Hillary she did not go for divorce "... to ease the human suffering caused by the marital breakdown". Instead, repentance, forgiveness and fortitude eventually prevailed. Today Mrs Clinton is quoted as a success story and the couple are still together.
This time, Mr Scicluna brings in the values of compassion and justice, uses them as a stick to kick the Church, and makes no attempt, again, to apply these values also to the provision of reconciliation services by the Family Court.
He seems to be totally oblivious (if not, to me he is devious) to the strong statement made by Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano in his speech The Family In The Dock: The Maltese Experience at the International Conference on the Family in Bugibba, on March 1: "As to mediation, while the statistics show that it is a useful tool to reach separation by mutual consent, it yet remains to be seen whether more can be done at this stage to effect reconciliation between the spouses. Perhaps some sort of quality assurance should be undertaken of the mediation process to find out whether this goal of reconciliation is being properly approached by the mediators, and what can be done possibly to improve the rate of reconciliations. Mediation in family law cases has now been in place for just over six years, and it is about time that all the stakeholders sit down round the table and examine dispassionately the strengths and weaknesses of the regime introduced in December of 2003."
Andrew Borg-Cardona, President of the Chamber of Advocates, supported the Chief Justice's plea and wrote that the Chamber "... would welcome and support any initiative that would strengthen the process of mediation".
The TPPI, and Mr Scicluna, its director general, in particular, should take Joe Inguanez's advice as a sociologist and act as analysts, and not as campaigners, in the issue of marital couples in distress. A degree of humility would do him no harm. He should realise that the Chief Justice knows much more about the realities of Maltese couples in distress than he does since coming to Malta a few years ago.