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I found Claire Bonello’s column entitled ‘No divorce, no problem’ to be analytical and to the point.
On the other hand I was shocked to read that the Hon Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici actually told foreign journalists that Maltese are afraid of divorce. Unless this gentleman was misquoted, his uttering such nonsense simply means he was either feeling the effects of the sun or else he is totally divorced from reality.
In spite of the government putting up more and more legal obstacles for couples wanting to separate, the flow has not been stopped – far from it. Our separation average is the same as the divorce average in Catholic Ireland and actually exceeds Catholic Poland. Malta has a unique situation where people separate, go their own ways and set up other families without obviously remarrying because divorce is not legal. The government’s priority is for Malta to pose as the Vatican’s satellite state and say ‘no divorce please, we’re Maltese’.
In effect, all the hoodoo about the negative effects that divorce will bring to Malta are de facto already in existence. The prophesied impact that divorce will cause these islands is already being experienced with separation and annulments. To my mind this should be a closed debate because we already accept divorces granted by foreign courts and divorce under the guise of separations and annulments locally.
It is an outrage that we have a government which has no qualms about playing people’s lives for political favour of the church. Ignoring the change in public opinion and avoiding a public debate will not address the issue either. The government’s mulish attitude is shifting the divorce issue from what should have been a societal debate to a political issue.
The government has, in my opinion, already suffered a massive direct hit in the MEP elections, with divorce being one of the issues. While PN strategists try to play it down, the truth is that there was and once again, will be an impact. The government’s refusal to legislate divorce, and the repressive provisions of the Family Act, will be a big consideration for affected voters. As the number of broken marriages grows bigger and bigger so does the problem for the government. The government could, at any time, legislate and settle this issue.
However unfortunately (and not for the first time), no one in government is listening to the reality wake-up calls.
Anthony Calleja
Birkirkara
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