Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco suggested today that there should be more than one divorce referendum question.
He said that there was no further argument when people declared themselves against the introduction of divorce.
But when they were in favour, various options should be presented because some people may be in favour of divorce only in particular circumstances.
The people, he said, were sovereign. They had a voice and they had to be heard.
The Maltese Referendum Act provided for situations where there was more than one referendum question. What the law laid down was that the reply had to be a simple yes or no.
Therefore, if MPs wanted to consult the people, they had to see what they really wanted, under various aspects.
The first question shoud be one of principle - Do you agree or disagree on the introduction of divorce?
But that question should then be followed by different scenarios for those who opted and declared themselves in favour of divorce.
Since there was no one size fits all for divorce, those who declared themselves to be in favour of divorce should be given various options – from the where divorce had to be consensual where the children were adults to divorce which did not need to be consensual but was fault divorce – that, for example, a victim of adultery could request divorce. The third scenario was the no-fault divorce where it was irrelevant whether a party was guilty or not of causing a marriage breakdown and any of the spouses could see divorce. In all these situations there was a cooling period of several years.
Then there was the Las Vegas divorce based on no fault divorce which was granted quickly.
Dr de Marco said the referendum question being proposed by the Opposition posed one serious problem – it imposed only one type of divorce.
He believed that if the people were really to be consulted, it would be wiser if the people were asked to decide among various scenarios.
For those who were against divorce, the story ended there. But others might agree on divorce only in particular circumstances.
Furthermore, the question as proposed was misguided, where it spoke on the guarantee of maintenance. A court could order maintenance, but it could never guarantee it.
Both sides were close, Dr de Marco said. They agreed on holding a divorce referendum, but, crucially, they had failed to agree on the referendum question.