Justice Minister Owen Bonnici told Parliament on Wednesday both parties agreed marriage annulment was still very relevant.

Winding up the debate on the Bill amending the Marriage Act, Dr Bonnici said annulment existed in both civil and canonic codes but the two institutions set different thresholds for it to be granted.

He agreed that it was more difficult to obtain an annulment from the Ecclesiastical Tribunal since they set stricter grounds.

However, one had to keep in mind that the Church regarded marriage as a sacrament and annulment was viewed as being more complex than just dissolving a civil contract as was the case in civil annulments.

A sacrament could only be dissolved in exceptional cases and procedures needed to be more thorough.

Civil and canonic codes set different thresholds for annulments to be granted

In ecclesiastical procedures, in fact, the Church appointed a defensive lawyer whose role was to play the devil’s advocate in trying his best to defend the validity of the marriage.

Parliamentary Secretary José Herrera said that the concept of separation between Church and State had been accepted long ago, but was firmly confirmed in Malta with the introduction of civil marriage in 1973.

He added that although the State streamlined civil annulment law suits with those adopted by the Church tribunal, different court interpretations continued.

There was also the complication that procedures in Church tribunals still are different from those adopted in the civil courts.

He referred to a case he had presented in the civil court aimed to end the 1995 Church-State agreement under which annulment awarded by an ecclesiastical court was to prevail in the civil court.

He had lost the case because the presiding judge had decided that when a person also married by the Catholic rite, it meant that he/she was accepting arbitration in a Church court. He said this weakened the standing of the judiciary.

Dr Herrera also referred to court cases where transgender persons were recognised as female but could not exercise this right through marriage.

He added that the courts also lagged behind in administrative matters where sentences awarded on judicial review were few and far between.

The PL government had liberal leanings and accepted radical court decisions because these accelerated reform.

The Bill meant ecclesiastical law would not stop civil court proceedings on marriage annulment. He also said that where the ecclesiastical court granted annulment, this should be accepted by the civil court without the couple instituting a new case.

Labour MP Luciano Busuttil said the amendment was long overdue and would bring back dignity and independence to the civil courts.

One had to keep in mind that the Church was not one of the pillars of justice and had not been elected by the people.

It was not right that the court had to succumb to a sovereign foreign authority on annulment cases.

The Bill would now be amending the Marriage Act to be able to grant civil annulments in cases where the Church had decided that a marriage was still valid.

Concluding, Dr Busuttil said that to be holistic, this should be also be applied to sentences where a marriage was declared null by the ecclesiastical tribunal and thus the full article should be removed.

He hoped this could be further discussed at committee stage.