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James Debono
The Domestic Violence Act has finally emerged from seven years in purgatorial suspension after having been first presented for the first time back in 1998 when Labour leader Alfred Sant was still Prime Minister.
The bill was finally published Friday, 13 May, on the government gazette.
However, the new bill has not attracted the support of everyone, with leading family lawyer Yana Micallef Stafrace expressing concern about the new law being a “watered-down version of the original.”
In comments to MaltaToday, Micallef Stafrace said that “the new law is not as far reaching as what was proposed in the White Paper presented in 1998.” Micallef Stafrace, is also objecting to the fact that the word “only” is being used in the context of verbal violence, as if diminishing its gravity.
The bill defines domestic violence as “any act of violence, even if only verbal, perpetrated by a household member upon another household member.”
Whilst the concept of stalking has now been excluded from the law, harassment has been recognised as a form of domestic violence.
Micallef Stafrace also expressed her concern that in the proposed bill the aggressor can still try to justify this kind of behaviour as reasonable. “How can harassment be regarded as reasonable?” she asked about the amendments to the Criminal Code allowing persons charged with an offence to show if “in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.”
The concept of protection orders has also been inserted in the new law. Through these orders the Court can issue restrictions and prohibitions which are imposed on the accused. This includes the prohibition of access to the premises where the person specified in the order lives, works or frequents.
“This is significant. Far too many times, it is those suffering the aggression who are forced to flee their homes in order to escape their aggressors with all the financial and emotional effects that this brings. Far worse are the cases were the persons who have suffered the aggression are forced to continue to remain in homes were they are not safe because they have nowhere to go,” Micallef Stafrace noted.
Through the new bill the Civil Court will be empowered to issue such orders. This will make life easier for persons who have suffered domestic violence since proceedings will not have to be initiated in the Criminal Court too.
According to the new bill a person who has suffered domestic violence does not have to initiate proceedings herself but it is up to the police to do so. Yet through the new law the victim of violence can ask the magistrate to stop procedures against the perpetrator.
Micallef Stafrace also expressed her worries about this article. “This is leaving the door wide open for the victim of domestic violence to be subjected to pressure to request such stay in proceedings.”
She insisted that domestic violence should not be considered as a family issue only.
“It is a cancer in society which effects generation after generation of members of the family where there is domestic violence since this seems to be behaviour transmitted from one generation to the other. Furthermore it affects each and every one of us because people brought up in such environments are the people we meet every day.”
jdebono@maltanet.net
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