Lawyer to take divorce issue to Court

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.

See Dr Zahra's views in full in the video above.