The House of Representatives this evening started to debate a motion moved by the Opposition for the holding of a referendum on the introduction of divorce.

The motion was moved by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo, who with Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, is also co-sponsoring a Bill for the introduction of divorce.

Mr Bartolo said it appeared that the motion was being backed by a majority of the House, including the whole Labour group and some members of the PN group.

He said he hoped Malta would have a mature debate on divorce without any crusades.

A key element of democracy, Mr Bartolo said, was that while the majority should govern, this majority should safeguard the rights of the minority.

The Labour MP said family unity was something he held very dear. He had been happily married for 33 years and he was unlikely to ever need divorce. But his good fortune did not mean that he should deny others whose marriage had broken down from the right to start afresh.

At present, those whose marriage broke down often ended up in cohabitation, but this was not what many people wished for.

Divorce did not destroy marriages, but came about because marriages would already have irrevocably broken down, Mr Bartolo said. The sorry fact was that the percentage of marriage breakdowns in Malta, as some 22% was higher than that of Italy and other countries.

Clearly, Mr Bartolo said, Malta should not have a tyranny of the majority which denied others their civil right to divorce.

Unless responsible divorce was introduced, problems would continue to increase in Malta, including an increased number of children who were born out of wedlock. Therefore the introduction of responsible divorce was also in the interests of children.

Marriage breakups, Mr Bartolo said, were on a consistent upward trend. It was worrying that according to research by Discern, a Church organisation, 35,000 would suffer a breakdown of their marriage in four years' time.

This was a problem which could not be ignored. People whose marriage had broken down should not be forced into cohabitation but should be able to start proper married life afresh.

REFERENDUM QUESTION

Central to the divorce referendum, Mr Bartolo said, was the question put to the people. The motion proposed that the people would be asked if they backed the possibility of divorce when a marriage would have irrevocably broken down, couples would have been separated for at least four years, and maintenance and child care arrangements would have been made.

This meant that Malta would not have a Las Vegas style divorce. Divorce could not be something which was decided lightly and overnight.

Mr Bartolo said he could not accept anything other than this form of responsible divorce.

This issue was not a religious one, Mr Bartolo said. Those who were members of the Church had a duty to follow its rights, but those who wished to have the civil right of divorce should not be denied that right.

LOADED QUESTION

Education Minister Dolores Cristina said she objected to the divorce referendum question proposed by the Labour Party because it was a loaded question aimed at selling the idea of introducing divorce.

"We should have a clear question, not necessarily a yes or no, but a question which does not hide realities and is not open to interpretation," Mrs Cristina said.

The question as proposed, however, played with people's emotions and confused the people.

Mrs Cristina was the first speaker from the government side in the debate.

Earlier in her address she admitted that she was against divorce, but stressed that no one could accuse her of lacking compassion.

She had approached this subject with trepidation and said it was important that the debate in the country was honest, informed and respectful.

In considering the referendum. she said, one needed to properly study the current situation and the impact of the introduction of divorce, socially and economically.

One also needed to look into the impact of divorce on the value of marriage as a permanent bond.

Mrs Cristina said there was no doubt that the government needed, as quickly as possible, to help those people whose marriage had broken down, but she did view divorce as the ideal solution because, for her, the overriding principle was to strengthen the marriage in the interests of the common good.

The minister said that no convention recognised divorce as a civil right, although some saw it as a social right not to deny people of marriage life. However this did not mean ending a marriage.