Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said yesterday that the Divorce Bill was a strange and confusing one which was introducing divorce as a substitute to separation and annulment. He believed that the Bill would be approved by Parliament but the problems of the new proposed system would arise when it was in effect.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said that he would be voting against the Bill since it was not coherent and did not clearly regulate an issue as delicate as divorce.

He did not agree with divorce for secular reasons. The people had, however, voted in favour of divorce and thus there no longer was the need to question whether divorce should be introduced or not.

Parliament should now focus on the content of the Bill. He criticised the way the electorate had been presented with the referendum question which was very restricted and had limited the way divorce could be legally introduced. However, it was now important to respect the people’s wish.

Malta was the only country which offered free mediation services during separation proceedings to encourage couples to try to reach a compromise before resorting to separation. Over a period of seven years there had been 6,000 requests for separation. Of these, 12 per cent had reconciled. Only 3,000 couples had actually separated.

The Bill was not promoting reconciliation. Certain clauses encouraged the parties to prolong separation proceedings for four years in order to be eligible to obtain divorce instead.

Furthermore the Bill was very vague on the issue of alimony and was not clear who would be eligible for this. Further clauses had to be included to clearly guarantee the right to maintenance.

In separation cases, the court took into consideration the reasons why a couple was separating. In domestic violence, the judgment and conditions presented by the court were different to those handed down to persons who had separated for no valid reason. The Bill was, however, proposing a no fault divorce; thus no criteria were being set and all were being put into the same basket.

The Bill did not offer a balance between freedom and responsibility. Dr Mifsud Bonnici believed the proposed Bill did not promote marriage and further created the need for the introduction of cohabitation law.

The Bill did not clarify how divorce would be different from annulment.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he was sure the Bill had been formulated with the best intentions. However, it was not legally correct and he thus felt he could not vote in its favour.