Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici yesterday assured the House that Malta would not find any difficulty in implementing the Hague Convention for the Protection of Children.
Winding up the debate on the Bill which provides for the ratification of the convention, the minister referred to comments made last week by opposition spokesman José Herrera, who had said that it seemed Malta was moving away from its legal concept of domicile towards that of habitual residence. Because both concepts had areas of connection, Malta was in a position to implement the legislation, and the future thrust was to make both concepts stronger.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the judiciary had always done a great job in interpreting laws according to what had been debated in Parliament and had sought to interpret what was in the legislator’s mind. Something to help the judiciary in the interpretation of this convention was the fact that it incorporated concepts of both a civil law nature and of a common law nature. This was a strength which would make the Bill even easier to implement in the various countries.
The legal framework which dealt with the protection of minors was being strengthened. The legislator had to see that the laws gave remedies to people who needed them. The fact that Malta was having various families of mixed nationalities made it more immediate to have such legislation which offered protection to such families and to minors coming from these families.
Earlier, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the Bill was binding on all the 27 EU member states, ensuring widespread protection of minors. Most importantly, the convention spelled out the jurisdiction of the courts and claimed that if one court had jurisdiction to hear the case then it would be the proper court to give the final decision, even if the child might be resident in another country. The Bill has a cooperation clause which would solve problems of jurisdiction, otherwise complicated by diplomatic disputes between countries. This clause would make countries agree more quickly on which was the applicable law to a particular case.
He said that other laws which were found under the Hague Convention had been already transposed into Malta’s laws in 2000.