The two parties came to unanimous agreement in committee late last night on all clauses of the Divorce Bill as amended in a number of sometimes lengthy sittings.
The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for the Consideration of Bills, Ċensu Galea, said that he would report to Speaker Michael Frendo in a plenary session on Monday morning.
Owen Bonnici, leading the Labour party representatives, and Nationalist Party representative Francis Zammit Dimech said they had agreed to move and second the amendments together.
The euphoria surrounding Mr Galea’s announcement was somewhat marred just after by unexpectedly lengthy discussion about the voting method on Monday, when each MP will be given a booklet with all the amendments agreed on.
The booklet will be compiled by Attorney General Peter Grech and Angele Attard, who during the proceedings represented Family Affairs Minister Dolores Cristina. The committee empowered them to renumber clauses as they thought fit. They will be working in coordination with the Clerk of the House.
The plenary session will vote on each amendment, with no debate being allowed, in line with a decision of the House Business Committee.
Following the plenary approval of all amendments, the House will adjourn for 30 minutes – also by decision of the House Business Committee – for the third reading of the Bill in what will constitute a new sitting. Nationalist Parliamentary whip David Agius said the discussion on the voting method was worth the time it was taking, rather than surfacing on Monday morning in the House.
In the committee’s final sitting, Dr Zammit Dimech proposed that any amendment to the criteria for divorce, as set out in the referendum question, should be subject to a new referendum, as the original question was.
Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg said he would have wanted any proposed change to the criteria to be dependent on a two-thirds vote in the House.
Dr Bonnici retorted that at the end of the Bill’s second reading there had not even been a two-thirds majority of the House voting for the Bill. It would, therefore, be unwise to tie the matter to a two-thirds vote. Rather, Parliament should be bound to hold a fresh referendum for any change to the criteria.
Earlier, the committee had resumed its discussion where Monday’s session had left off – on whether a parent known to have abused his child could ever be deemed fit to gain custody after the original custodian passed away.
Deborah Schembri, who is helping Bill joint proposer Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, said that with many separations being amicable, it was difficult to get to know about an unfit father. The only way to know was through a court decision, so there must be a recourse to the court when the custodian died.
Dr Bonnici said the court today could already decide that a parent must no longer have parental authority. He disagreed with automatically eliminating a parent from the rights of parenthood.
Dr Attard, legal counsel to Minister Cristina, proposed a new sub-clause dealing with the subject. She added that on the order of separation the court could already order that one parent may never have custody of the child even if the custodian died.
Dr Bonnici said that not only at the time of the sentence but even later there could still be recourse to the court on a change of circumstances regarding the fitness or otherwise of a parent. This consideration should be included even in amicable separations.
Eventually the sub-clause was redrafted in the sense that the court may, at any time for serious reasons and on the request of one of the parties, declare that one of the parents was unfit to ever have custody of the children, not even on the death of the custodian.
Dr Bonnici maintained that a parent could be declared unfit and lose parenthood if declared unfit at the time of separation, not if anybody requested the court for a subsequent declaration.
Dr Attard said custody and power of parenthood were two separate concepts. The discussion then turned to the question of whether an innocent divorced party should inherit anything from the at-fault party.
Dr Borg said the Bill proposed that at divorce the couple automatically lost the right to succession, something which they normally renounced to in amicable separation.
But why should an innocent spouse suffer the loss of succession, especially if that party were of modest means?
Dr Pullicino Orlando said that if the couple were no longer married a decision would already have been taken on the community of assets and pension. Why was succession being brought up now if the couple were no longer married?
Dr Borg maintained that the loss of succession would be both unfair and unjust to the innocent victim of limited means. If anything, this should be left to the court’s discretion.
Dr Bonnici said that currently, a party guilty of a marital break-up already lost the legitimate inheritance of one quarter, known as uxoria.
Dr Borg said that even though the absolute majority of couples renounced to succession, whoever was innocent should not lose part of the succession. After all, the court already had discretion on the decision of alimony.
Dr Schembri said separation and divorce were two completely different aspects. Divorce more resembled annulment, which gave no right to succession but did give a right to part of the pension. If a divorced man remarried, he would have to bequeath a quarter of his assets to each wife, which would amount to a half.
Dr Zammit Dimech suggested an amendment whereby the fruits of the innocent party’s work must not be split.
Dr Pullicino Orlando said that on this line of thinking, the fact that a wife committed adultery because forced to it by circumstances would weigh in favour of her husband, who should therefore take part of the job earnings of his faulty ex-wife and her new husband.
Justyne Caruana (PL) said there should definitely be no question of succession in divorce.
Dr Schembri said that if succession was included in divorce, nobody would divorce. It must be made clear that no decision on succession should be included in divorce proceedings.