Lawyer will take divorce issue to court
Case would take three to four years to conclude
A lawyer is planning to file a constitutional case against the government for violating her "right to respect for family life" by not allowing divorce.
Lynn Zahra has lived with former Labour Cabinet Minister Joe Grima for more than 20 years and they have a child but their family is not recognised as a legitimate unit, socially and legally.
"We are treated like second class citizens," she said.
She will file the case in October, based on various legal arguments, but has "no illusions" of winning in the Maltese courts. In fact, her aim is to take it to the European Court of Human Rights where she is certain Malta would finally be "forced" to allow couples from broken marriages the right to divorce. She hopes that about 30 people join her in her legal battle so they can share the expenses.
But she can only go to the ECHR after exhausting local remedies.
Although she has been planning to take this step for a long time, she was pushed to get things moving when Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando put forward a Private Member's Bill. "He believes in legislation because he is a parliamentarian but I believe this is a right that is being violated, so I will take this to court," Dr Zahra said, describing Dr Pullicino Orlando as a "hero" for taking up the issue without worrying about losing votes.
Dr Pullicino Orlando is expecting the Bill to be discussed in Parliament by January but Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has already expressed himself against divorce.
"I find it really sad that our Prime Minister is cheerfully ignoring the rights of his citizens because, as a devout Catholic, he shudders at the thought that divorce is introduced on his watch," Dr Zahra argues.
Dr Zahra, who described herself as a non-practising Catholic, said this was not a religious issue because not all citizens were devout Catholics. But she is not impressed by Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat's position that divorce should be introduced through a free vote in Parliament.
"Dr Muscat is shilly-shallying. He is gauging the people's mood and waiting for surveys to take his cue so he does not lose votes. I don't like it when people play with words and dangle carrots in front of their electorate. This does not show conviction or leadership."
That is why she is willing to start a case she knows would take at least three or four years to conclude. She is convinced that Parliament would not introduce divorce, regardless of the Private Member's Bills by Dr Pullicino Orlando or, eventually, Dr Muscat. However, she hopes that, once Malta is taken to the ECHR, both parties would "wake up and smell the coffee".
Possibly, she argues, both party leaders would include divorce in their manifestos - before the case is decided - not to risk looking like they had bad judgment once the court finds Malta was breaching human rights.
Although she knows there is not much case law to back up her claims, she points out that this was also the case with Lautsi vs Italy, where the court found that crucifixes in public classrooms violated the right to freedom of religion.
Regarding a referendum, Dr Zahra disagrees with such an approach because she strongly feels that divorce is something that concerns a minority who should not be subjected to the "tyranny of the majority".