Chamber of Advocates ‘wants answers’ on lawyers’ ban from Ecclesiastic Tribunal
The Chamber of Advocates is still waiting for the Ecclesiastic Tribunal to accept invitations to meet and discuss the highly-controversial ‘bans’ handed down to pro-divorce lawyers.
"We haven’t heard back from the Ecclesiastic Tribunal yet,” Chamber of Advocates President Dr Reuben Balzan told MaltaToday on Wednesday. “We received a confirmation of receipt of our letter just yesterday.”
Despite no fixed plans for the meeting, Balzan said that the chamber remains determined: “We were the ones who asked for the meeting. The moment we’re offered a time slot, we’ll meet to discuss the issue.”
The Chamber had sent a letter requesting a meeting on 2 June to discuss the contentious Ecclesiastic Tribunal ‘bans’ which targeted pro-divorce lawyers.
Causing considerable uproar at a time when the divorce referendum campaign was entering its final stages, the news that pro-divorce lobby chairperson and family lawyer Deborah Schembri was banned made headlines overnight.
Since then, prominent politicians and pro-divorce lawyers Owen Bonnici and Anglu Farrugia were also reportedly barred from representing clients within the Tribunal, within which marriage annulment cases are heard.
The Tribunal’s seemingly ad hoc knee-jerk reactions – and the fact that the lawyers concerned were not given a fair hearing – fuelled considerable concern among lawyers, something that the Chamber of Advocates is keen to address.
Asked about how the Chamber would approach the issue of the ‘bans’ during the meeting, Reuben Balzan said that at this stage, the chamber “simply wants answers.”
“What we want is to firstly, get clarifications as to whether it is actually true that the Ecclesiastic Tribunal is barring those lawyers that speak out in favour of divorce. Then we want the Tribunal to explain its criteria upon which these lawyers were singled out and barred. Does simply speaking out in favour of divorce mean that lawyers will get barred?” Balzan asked, adding that the Ecclesiastic Tribunal should explain its reasoning.
“Once these questions have been answered, we as a Chamber can determine our position on the issue.”
Questions sent to the Curia remained unanswered. “Please note that if and when the Curia has anything to comment in connection with the matter, it will issue a note and disseminate in the usual manner,” the Curia would only say.
Balzan also welcomed made by MEP Simon Busuttil on Wednesday, where he called on government to ensure that the Ecclesiastic Tribunal’s decisions “live up to standards of human rights that the state is duty-bound to guarantee.”
“I agree 100% with what Simon Busuttil wrote. The State is duty-bound duty to ensure that the Ecclesiastic Court’s decisions respect human rights,” Balzan said. He also emphasised the grounds upon which Busuttil was urging the government to intervene are solid.
In his opinion piece, Busuttil called on the government to enter into talks with the Church to address the manner in which the bans were handed out, and that the State cannot recognise decisions “delivered by a tribunal that fails the test of human rights.”