The Prime Minister yesterday expressed doubts on whether “legal difficulties” raised by a number of Nationalist MPs about the divorce Bill, which passed a second hurdle in Parliament yesterday, could be overcome.

Speaking right after the vote on the second reading, Dr Gonzi said it was his duty as Prime Minister to ensure the democratic process was respected in all its aspects and that the law passed through Parliament, as he anticipated it would.

However, he also said earlier in Parliament, as he justified his No vote, that had he been in favour of divorce he would still have voted against the Bill since it did not give the electorate what it voted for, particularly in the guarantee of maintenance.

The issue hinges on a passage of the referendum question which says that maintenance would be guaranteed and children would be protected under the divorce legislation.

“I will leave it up to legal experts, but the way I’m seeing things today, no amendment will be able to guarantee adequate maintenance,” Dr Gonzi said, challenging all the lawyers in the House to force people to pay the maintenance they had to.

The only Cabinet member to vote in favour of the Bill, Joe Cassar, also reflected this concern, although he seemed more hopeful about apositive outcome.

“I am in favour as long as certain parameters are respected, namely the guarantee of adequate maintenance for children. I felt the actual law does not reflect children’s rights enough,” he said.

“I believe the changes can be made and, at the end of the day, if they are not done I will vote against on the third reading. If there is goodwill, and I believe there is, it can happen.”

Yet, the MP who proposed the bill, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, rejected the argument, pointing out that the question guaranteed the right to maintenance and not the payment of the maintenance itself – a point which was raised and debated during the referendum campaign.

People who failed to pay maintenance ended up in prison, he pointed out.

The bill otherwise breezed through its second reading yesterday with 44 votes in favour, a dozen abstentions and 13 votes against, which included the Prime Minister. It comes just over a year after Nationalist backbencher Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, out of the blue, presented a private member’s bill calling for the introduction of divorce legislation based on the Irish model.

Parliamentarians yesterday stood up to be counted, literally. The House of Representatives ditched the usual voting system, which usually entails a simple verbal confirmation of the vote, and decided to have MPs stand up when their preference, Yes, No or Abstain, was called.

The first reading of the Bill, which is merely meant to allow the discussion on it to continue, went through unanimously on June 1. However, precisely how yesterday’s vote would be played out had remained something of a mystery for some time as several MPs, among them the Prime Minister, kept their voting intentions to themselves in the past weeks.

Now, the so-called committee stage follows, in which a group of MPs from both sides of the House will thrash out the technical details of the Bill before the final vote on the third reading. This phase started shortly after the vote was taken yesterday. The parties have come to an informal agreement on most of the changes to be made to the bill, however, as indicated by the Prime Minister, a sticking point may be the question of maintenance.

In his first reaction to the vote, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said Dr Gonzi was the first Prime Minister to ignore a referendum result, accusing him of going against the will of the people.

“This is inexcusable,” Dr Muscat said, adding Parliament in general had done the right thing.

Asked to comment on the No vote of his own MP Adrian Vassallo, Dr Muscat said: “He had every right, it was his choice, he’ll have to bear any consequences”.

The Labour leader rejected the claim that Dr Vassallo and Marie Louise Coleiro Preca (who abstained) had also ignored the will of the people, saying that if it were not for his party, the vote would not have passed. Shortly before the vote was taken, Dr Pullicino Orlando called on all his colleagues to respect the electorate’s decision.

“A referendum is the clearest expression of common will – if we do not honour the result of the people’s vote, we would be indicating we’re ready to ignore their clear expression of solidarity with an ever growing minority,” he said.

The Prime Minister’s No

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said he chose to be consistent with his anti-divorce stance and voted No given that he predicted “correctly” that a parliamentary majority would see the bill through anyway.

As he emerged from Parliament, he said Maltese democracy was working well and that as Prime Minister his duty was “to see that the referendum result is respected”, adding that he was “proud” that the vote in Parliament had reflected this.

His decision was greeted with mixed reactions.

Former Labour Minister Lino Spiteri said he always expected Dr Gonzi to vote against but “hoped that he would realise that by doing so he would be betraying himself”.

“Even before the referendum vote was formally announced he conceded the Yes vote had won and said that it must be respected. Now, he has ended up not respecting it himself. Democracy and ethics now demand that he should resign from the position of Prime Minister. He may feel fit to continue to lead his party but he is definitely unfit to continue leading the government and the country,” Mr Spiteri said.

Philosopher and former Nationalist MEP candidate Joe Friggieri said it was “important, for the sake of democracy, that the bill should pass – which it did, with a large majority”.

However, he added: “I still can’t follow the logic of those who insisted on pitting their conscience or their principles against the will of the people, democratically expressed in a referendum. I consider their arguments flawed and potentially dangerous. I find it rather worrying that those who voted against the bill, or who abstained from voting, still do not seem to realise the serious implications of their decision.”

Peter Serracino Inglott, philosopher and adviser to former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, said he did not find Dr Gonzi’s vote unreasonable.

“I think the two positions are reasonable, both by voting no, knowing the law would still pass, but still expressing his opinion. I think he would also have been perfectly entitled to vote yes, by saying he did not agree with the vote but that he was voting according to the electorate’s decision. You can’t say it’s unreasonable or wrong, yes or no,” Prof. Serracino Inglott said.

“Since it was clear for him it was going to pass, there was no special duty for him to be different from the other members,” he said.

The head of the pro-divorce lobby and Labour candidate Deborah Schembri was happy to see the vote going through but was disappointed at those who voted no.

“I am surprised with the Prime Minister’s vote, whose idea it was to have a referendum in the first place,” Dr Schembri said, adding that MPs were there to represent the people’s will, and not their feelings.