|
Matthew Vella
Labour candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici is ready to bring a thorny issue back onto her party’s agenda: divorce. But the stakes look set for an uphill battle for the former eurosceptic campaigner, as Labour’s priority right now is stealing more ground from a fumbling Nationalist administration, struggling with the country’s economic problems.
Unfazed, Ellul Bonici says the matter is a priority which concerns a social problem that had to be tackled long ago: “Divorce is not a priority for the MLP. The priority for Labour right now is certainly jobs, reviving the economy and building trust and security.
“I have no idea how a discussion on divorce legislation would be welcomed as this so far is simply my personal opinion on what I believe is the right thing to do for thousands of suffering couples. That’s why I am stocking up on scientific research on separations and broken marriages in Malta, to back up a proposal which will be made to my party at a later stage.”
Today the former assistant to Labour MEP John Attard Montalto works in the European Parliament on the side of the so-called “eurorealists” who are against the “EU’s centralised power in Brussels”.
Speaking of enjoying equal rights as an EU citizen, Ellul Bonici says Malta has taken all the union’s negative aspects, but not all its positive aspects. Malta is the only EU member state without divorce, and the European Commission is now contemplating a community-wide standard on divorce legislation.
“I believe Maltese citizens should have the same rights as all European Citizens now that Malta is an EU member. It is a simple question: put divorce to the referendum test,” Ellul Bonici says.
With over 500 separation cases filed in the Maltese courts every year, Ellul Bonici says the increase in marriage breakdowns has revealed the extent of the social problem at hand: “separated couples go through hell as they deal with lawyers, mediators and banks. They have problems setting up themselves into a new life with a new partner, and it also creates a lot of financial problems.”
Ellul Bonici admits to divorce being beyond the bread-and-butter issues that currently dominate the national agenda, although her intention is to push a “studied” proposal for discussion amongst Labour’s executive, of which she is a member as a second district party candidate.
The next step, after approval from the executive, would ultimately be a verdict from the party general conference’s delegates.
Ellul Bonici claims she is not worried about the effects a campaign on divorce legislation would have on her political future: “Although it is not my main political concern, and I will only hope to trigger it, I believe in it and I hope there will be backing from all those in favour, even from Nationalists and Greens. This is an issue which should not be politicised. I detest hypocrisy in politics and losing popularity does not worry me.”
Back during his short-lived 1996-98 administration, then Labour Prime Minister Alfred Sant set up a commission to further study the matter, although divorce practically disappeared from his agenda after Labour’s return to the Opposition benches.
Later in 1998, the Nationalist electoral manifesto proposed rights for cohabiting couples and which so far has never materialised. Ellul Bonici says the promises offer a “grave contradiction: government resorts to public policy to justify its stance against divorce because we adhere to the Christian definition of marriage, which implies a monogamous and an indissoluble union.”
Ironically however, Maltese marriage law does recognise a foreign divorce obtained from a court in the country where either a spouse is domiciled in, or is a citizen of that country.
“Isn’t this an exception to the rule of public policy?,” Ellul Bonici says. “So if the law recognises such foreign divorces, why are Maltese couples deprived from initiating divorce proceedings in their own country? A Maltese national married to a foreigner will have no obstacles to obtain a divorce from the foreign spouse’s country, and it will be even recognised in Malta. But if both spouses are Maltese there is no possibility at all: I believe this is sheer discrimination.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
|
