Updated | Parties shouldn’t take stand on divorce – Moviment IVA chairperson

Contacted by MaltaToday, Schembri maintained that this is not a political issue, but a social issue. “No matter whether they take a stand or not, nobody is ‘voting’ for either party on the divorce debate,” she said.

“It is an undeniable truth that there are those who vote along party lines,” Schembri said, “which not might be the healthiest option given the issue at hand. As a movement, we have been working to ensure that divorce does not become an issue of political partisanship, but is something that crosses political borders.”

“Should the parties take a stand, it would undermine everyone’s freedom to decide their position in terms of their own conscience or morals,” she said, adding that it would not be in the national interest if parties took a stand. “What is important, however, is that those individuals within each party do take a stand of their own,” she maintained, “even if the party as a whole does not.”

Asked if she felt there was a contradiction between how Jeffrey Pullicino Orland, a co-presenter of the divorce Private Members’ Bill and fellow pro-divorce movement committee member, urged this party on Sunday to avoid taking a stance on divorce to not alienate voters, Schembri said she did not.

“I do not think it is contradictory. If anyone was making an electoral programme, then he or she would have to take a position. Since this is just one issue, its another story,” she said.

Asked the same question, Pullicino Orlando substantiated his position by affirming that “this issue is an apolitical one” and that “decisions should be arrived at without undue pressure.”

“The decisions made are dependent on what each and every one of us feels is the best way forward in a society which has social justice as one of its main tenets,” he said, adding that he feels it “unfair to impose what I strongly believe in on others.”

“I feel that other members of my party, who oppose me in this respect, should do the same,” adding that it would be “unwise for the party to take a stand about the divorce issue when it never did so in the past.”

“The fact that pro-divorce candidates were accepted by the Nationalist Party in the past shows that this issue was not considered to be alien to the fundamental beliefs of our party.”

Despite this, former president Eddie Fenech Adami has strongly urged the PN to take a position against divorce, while Austin Gatt has already went on record saying that he would resign from parliament if the party took a position in favour of divorce.

So far, neither the PL nor the PN have affirmed positions either against or in favour of divorce, even if discussions within both parties are ongoing on the subject. Various MPS have already come out affirming themselves either for or against.