JPO, 'My views on divorce changed because I couldn't ignore the trauma of broken marriages'

Divorce bill promoter Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has admitted to MaltaToday that he penned newspaper articles expressing his opinion against divorce 13 years ago, but said his view of Maltese society had changed radically since then.

MaltaToday was alerted to the articles today, which Pullicino Orlando said were already raised by minister Austin Gatt during the internal debate on divorce held inside the PN’s executive committee.

“It was an attempt to embarrass me and perhaps shut me up during one of the many PN executive committee meetings which focused on divorce… it was a personal attack met with disapproval even from high-ranking party officials who are against divorce,” Pullicino Orlando said.

Asked about whether he would be held to account for his change in position on divorce, Pullicino Orlando said he has been “expecting some personal attack of some sort” for some time now.

“I was actually advised against accompanying Dr Deborah Schembri to Monday’s Bondiplus by Rachel Attard, Lou Bondì’s associate… She told me last Wednesday during a telephone conversaton to discuss next Monday’s production that I shouldn’t go to the studios as I ‘might be attacked personally’ during the programme.”

Asked to comment about the opinion articles he had written in the press, expressing his personal opposition to divorce, the Nationalist MP – himself separated from his wife – said the level of marital breakdowns in Malta had rapidly increased.

“The marital breakdown rate in our country has unfortunately, since then, shot up to levels which are even higher than those found in other European countries with a similar culture,” Pullicino Orlando said today.

“I presented the private member’s bill back in July and co-presented it with Labour MP Evarist Bartolo in December because I felt that it was high time that this issue was discussed in Parliament.”

Pullicino Orlando added that after having studied the Irish divorce law passed in 1995, he saw that a responsible form of divorce could be introduced without encouraging marital breakdown. “The divorce bill will be discussed in parliament if the electorate votes yes on the 28th May – and this law simply allows remarriage where the first marriage has broken down irrevocably.”

The MP reiterated his personal belief that it was “unjust” for spouses wishing to regularise their lives after going through the trauma of a broken marriage, to “only do so if they have the means of getting a divorce from abroad.”

Pullicino Orlando also said he was willing to answer questions on his “sincere belief that divorce can help individuals who's first marriage has irrevocably broken down.”