Minister’s unfair and mistaken observations

I refer to the opinion piece Unfair Criticism Of A Statesman by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tonio Borg, (April 12), in which he took exception to my Talking Point of March 30, Three Presidents, Hypocrisy And Divorce.

Dr Borg, for whom I have great respect and affection, is misinformed in what he wrote about me on four grounds.

First, he imputes motives to me which are simply wrong. I did not anywhere in my article imply or state that President Emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami had “no right to speak on this topic (divorce)” and I challenge him to quote a single phrase where I said this. I realise that Dr Borg would not personally have drafted this article himself but I would at least have expected him to have checked the facts before levelling accusations at me of trying to muzzle anybody’s right to be heard freely.

Secondly, nowhere did I say that the late President Guido de Marco supported divorce. What I said specifically was that “he would also have realised that once marriages broke down, (he would have found) an enlightened legal remedy to deal with the resulting instability with justice and humanity. As a legislator he would have worked to achieve this”. I still stand by that sentiment about a great man. Only those of a most fevered imagination could possibly interpret what was written as his supporting or not supporting divorce.

Thirdly, Dr Borg mistakes my position on referendums in Malta. My position remains, as it always has been (as expressed publicly only as recently as last Saturday at the AŻAD debate about divorce) that, in our parliamentary democracy, issues such as divorce or, say, in vitro fertilisation, are the responsibility of our legislators in Parliament, who have to make the decisions on the best way forward, mindful of the need to act always in the best interests of society as a whole, including those who form only a minority within it.

The fact that we find ourselves facing a referendum today is only because of the moral cowardice demonstrated by both party leaders, who have ducked and weaved to avoid their responsibilities on this issue. But – and this is crucial to where we stand today – since the people have been lumbered with making the decision on a perfectly fair question, reflecting the key terms of the Private Members’ Bill now before Parliament, legislators have a moral obligation to reflect the will of the people if the vote in the referendum goes in favour of divorce legislation.

Fourthly, the whole point of what I wrote in Three Presidents, Hypocrisy And Divorce was to highlight, with regret, the hypocrisy of President Emeritus Fenech Adami in supporting the introduction of cohabitation laws in Malta, which in the eyes of the Church amounts to adultery, while rejecting remarriage after legal separation because “Jesus Christ… said divorce was bad for society” (sic). As I said in the article, how he can contort his Christian beliefs as to support cohabitation over remarriage defies all logic.

Perhaps a member of the religious right in the party can enlighten us?