It promised to be the mother of all debates. The country would stop to listen, some thought. However, it fizzled out as an almost non-event. I refer to divorce debate, which was going on in Parliament last week and will keep on going during this week.

The happenings in Libya (largely and quite rightly) killed it. At the time of writing, the struggle is still on and it is not clear what the result will be. The different reactions that exist among us say a lot about us as a people. There was a lot of praise for our sense of solidarity and correctness of action; but I sense a substratum of fear, which can overthrow all of this. Some of it is justified. A protracted civil war in Libya will hit us very negatively. Some do not let this fear extinguish their sense of solidarity and humanity. Others do not. Their fear stems from lack of information, or an innate sense of misguided nationalism or, worse still, racism. We will have to wait and see whether the latter turns out to be stronger than the former, if things turn sour.

Do not blame Libya

I do not think that only Libya is responsible for the lack of interest in the debate. I think that part of this lack of interest lies in the belief that the divorce debate (and subsequent referendum) is being forced on the country prematurely. JPO could ironically turn out to be the secret weapon of the anti-divorce lobby.

Many people have not shown any interest in the debate as they believe that the conclusion was arrived at before its start. The Partit Laburista has been championing a free vote on divorce but it seems that this did not include a free discussion. All Labour MPs signed the same motion putting forward a skewed and unfair question masked as if it was the fairest of them all. All Labour MPs thus declared that they were all going to vote for the motion. This is undoubtedly a Parliamentary first: Labour MPs have a free vote on something they declared up front that they all want! The Parliamentary debate has certainly not turned out to be the mother of all debates but it will probably become known as the mother of all free votes.

A skewed referendum question

Now let us look at the referendum question that will probably be forced upon us thanks to the vote Labour MPs (even those who declared that: “I will not be moved unless directly told so by Christ”) and JPO. I re-produce it word for word and in the original language.

“TAQBEL MAL-INTRODUZZJONI TAL-GHAZLA TAD-DIVORZJU F'KAZ TA KOPPJA MIZZEWWGA LI TKUN ILHA SEPARATA JEW TKUN ILHA MA TGHIX FLIMKIEN GHAL MILL-INQAS ERBA SNIN, U META MA JKUN HEMM L-EBDA TAMA RAGJONEVOLI TA RIKONCILJAZZJONI BEJN IL-MIZZEWGIN, FILWAQT LI JKUN GARANTIT MANTENIMENT ADEGWAT U JKUNU MHARSA T-TFAL?"

Taken at face value the question supporting JPO’s proposed law can be mistaken as a reasonable one. I am sure if people are asked for their position about it, the majority will turn out to be overwhelmingly in favour. Nevertheless, on analysis the question is recognised for what it really is: a sham.

My reasons follow:

1. After being bombarded by the “miskina msawta” or “miskina jaqlibilha” (males are always depicted as the villains) justifications of divorce the Partit Laburista presented us with a question that ignores all of these justifications. Instead, they want us to vote for JPO’s divorce proposal. In fact, this means that there is no need to bring any justification to divorce. Just leave your partner; live with another one, or alone or with multiple partners. Then after four years, you cry out “Hey presto” and you are divorced.

1. We were bombarded by another justification for the introduction of divorce legislation. Divorce will not be forced on anyone. Divorce will be there only for those who wish to divorce. Why should one deny people to “give love a second chance” – as JPOs movement so lovingly puts it? Wrong. The referendum question proposed by the Partit Laburista implies that divorce can be forced on an unwilling partner. If your partner walks away for four years, he/she is granted the right to ram divorce down your throat. If you do not want divorce forced on you, think twice before voting.

1. The PL’s motion in line with JPO’s draft law speaks of “manteniment garantit.” How can they guarantee alimony? They surely know that our Courts abound with litigation about the several instances where alimony is not paid in separation cases even though the Courts decreed it. How do the proponents of the motion propose to guarantee that which decades of experience show cannot be guaranteed?

1. The sweetest part is the promise that “jkunu mharsa t-tfal”. How? Why bother informing the voters about the why? Children (given some exceptions) are against divorce as they are against separation and annulments. There are possible reactions to this sentence. Some can say: If we are already hurting children by separations and annulments why not hurt them more by divorce? The other take goes as follows: Instead of adding more legal provisions that hurt children let us go the extra mile to strengthen marriage preparation, invest heavily in family therapy and come out with all the possible family-friendly regulations and laws. We will be asked to choose between these alternatives.

Irresponsible divorce

JPO’s draft law and the motion of the Partit Laburista are pushing us towards an irresponsible kind of divorce. They say that the introduction of divorce legislation is a historic occurrence but then, they have not proposed any study to assess the impact of such a historic decision. We do an impact assessment if a nest of worms lies in the way of an industrial or touristic project. We pay thousands of euros to study the way these worms would be impacted. Marriage and the family deserve more attention than a nest of worms.

There is place for a serious discussion about whether the state of marriage and the family in Malta is such that divorce can be contemplated as the lesser of two evils but the way the country is being forced to go about it is not the correct one.