Divorce: Questions for PN

Ava Gardner once quipped that, deep down, she was superficial. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando in performance makes m e think of Ms Gardner (although the reverse is not true: I can watch Mogambo without even once thinking it could be Dr Pullicino Orlando smouldering in Clark Gable’s strong arms). Witness his discussion of how the Nationalist Party should address the legalisation of divorce.

I write as someone who is in qualified agreement with the introduction of a divorce law. (Some circumstances would make me change my view but if a referendum were held tomorrow I would vote yes.)

However, I can see how a thoughtful member of the PN executive, still open to persuasion on the issue, would be unconvinced by some of Dr Pullicino Orlando’s arguments.

First, there are the red herrings, such as the argument from compassion: that a divorce law shows compassion with people in need, since it resolves some absurd and horrific predicaments that our current legal regime generates.

Yes, our legal regime does create horror stories and divorce can resolve some of them. But horror stories are not a monopoly of a no-divorce regime. Someone trawling in divorce jurisdictions will find them too. So the argument from compassion resolves nothing as it could be made by both sides of the debate.

Second, Dr Pullicino Orlando is cavalier with the facts. Told that certain peer-reviewed studies show divorce laws raise the rate of marital breakdown, he replies this is not true as in Ireland it did not happen and he adds (correctly) that Malta’s rate of marital breakdown is higher than Ireland’s.

Even if we did not hedge the Irish case with qualifications, it would remain the European exception so far. One study has shown that in 18 countries, over a 50-year period, certain divorce laws accounted for 20 per cent of the rise in the breakdown rate. Pending other evidence, we should take this to be the rule. And given that our crude marital breakdown rate is 1.8 (based on the 2008 census), which is to say much closer to mainstream Europe than the Irish rate of 0.8 (2005 figures), it is the rule more likely to apply to us. An intellectually honest pro-divorce view needs to accommodate it (and I would say it can).

Third, Dr Pullicino Orlando seems incapable of making the strongest case even when the facts are entirely on his side. On TVM’s Dissett last week, he let Reno Bugeja get away with saying the PN had once ruled against including divorce in what Mr Bugeja called its “Valuri Bażiċi” (basic values) document.

The document is actually called Fehmiet Bażiċi (basic understandings, meaning basic policy approaches). In the divorce context, the correction is neither trivial nor irrelevant. The word fehmiet was deliberately chosen over “values” to indicate a flexible, contextual, dialogic approach to policy.

The issue of divorce came up in the party executive’s discussion leading to the document’s approval in early 1986 (one source places the discussion some years earlier but in a similar context). The issue was not whether to propose a divorce law. It concerned a passage stating that a Christian Democrat party was a secular party, above all concerned with passing laws for the common good and not to enforce Christian morality. The draft text contained an example: that there might be circumstances where a Christian Democrat government might have excellent reasons to think it prudent to introduce divorce.

Some executive members protested at the example and after an inconclusive discussion it was dropped – although not the description of the party’s secularity, which is still there. Please note: divorce was dropped as an example of secularity, not rejected eternally as policy and it was dropped not to get bogged down in a discussion of an issue which was not on the national agenda at the time.

But it is noteworthy that the then leader, Eddie Fenech Adami, did not appear to have a problem with the example. Even today he allows that, under certain social circumstances, which he hopes will never transpire, legalising divorce would be the prudent course. He just does not think those are the circumstances today. On the matter of principle, his position is identical to that of his former colleague, Michael Falzon, today a member of the Yes to Divorce movement. He differs on the practical judgment of the circumstances.

And that remains the real issue before the PN today: each executive member’s judgment of the circumstances’ demands on good sense.

Yes, divorce is a matter for everyone, not a minority issue. Yes, there are circumstances where not permitting divorce serves to regulate marriage prudently. But there are other circumstances when the marital breakdown rate is so high that not to permit divorce is practically to deregulate family life.

Malta’s current crude breakdown rate is 1.8 (annulment figures included, as they are effectively included in other countries’ statistics). That places us in the bottom third of the EU-27 (2006 figures), just under the eurozone average of 1.9 and the EU-27 average of 2.0. There is wiggle room to argue about the comparison but there is no doubt our rate is low but mainstream.

For the PN, the two critical questions are: How high a crude marital breakdown rate does a no-divorce regime need to have before it effectively endorses deregulation? Is deregulation compatible with the PN’s basic policy approach?

ranierfsadni@europe.com