We are not playing poker – Muscat to Gonzi on divorce vote

“If he wants his position to remain tenable and observe the people’s mandate, the Prime Minister must vote yes in tomorrow’s cardinal vote without flip-flopping about,” Muscat said yesterday in parliament.

Speaking in parliament, Muscat stressed that this is how he plans to vote himself and insisted that the government and Nationalist Party was in dire need to find a way out of the “dead end” Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had guided it into.

“It is not for me to say what position the PN should take. Its position, this time tomorrow, could however end up being not only anachronistic, but also going against a law that would have been approved by parliament.”

He said that if the PN did not withdraw its position against divorce, it would be as if the Opposition maintained, to this day, that Malta should not have joined the EU.

“It was not easy to change, but today we know that it was what had to be done. The PN is still living in denial,” Muscat said, adding that there is an inherent contradiction in how the PN is still opposing divorce yet ‘allowing’ a free vote.

“There is a huge inconsistency in this,” Muscat said, adding that from the first day the divorce issue surfaced, the PL’s position had not shifted.

In his address, Muscat also called on Gonzi to publish a draft version of the cohabitation bill after the vote today, and also called for more “political will” to ensure that Malta’s institutions that could eventually cater for divorce do not end up “hollow”.

He also slammed government’s anti-maternity leave extension stance given how Gonzi’s post-referendum speech emphasised the government’s intention to support and strengthen the family.

Muscat also spoke of how the referendum campaign sent out a sign the people desire “a Church and State that respect one another but are separate and clearly distinct entities.”

Referring to the bill itself Muscat said that the Opposition has a set of “rational” amendments in store, and discussions between Owen Bonnici and Francis Zammit Dimech showed that there is overall agreement.

“We are open to discuss improvement where we did not see it, and we hope the other side of the House is equally open to similar improvements,” Muscat said, adding that the PL is ready to work with all comers. “It is not a winner-takes-all scenario.”

He disagreed with suggestions to entrench the divorce legislation within the Constitution, saying rather that “under my watch, neither will I lead, nor will I support, any attempt to change the law in a way that touches any of the established parameters, and if there are such attempts, I will either call a referendum, or obtain a mandate through a general election manifesto.”

“We shouldn’t toy with the Constitution and create double hurdles, and have faith in the people. We can’t trust the people one day and not trust it the next,” Muscat said.

Also speaking in parliament, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said that the PN had already begun preparing amendments to the divorce bill a month prior.

During his address, he mentioned a number of what he felt to be shortcomings of the divorce bill, particularity with regard to what requirements and conditions the divorce bill lays down.

Borg underlined the need for the law itself to spell out what it would require for the law to be changed, and not stick to “gentlemen’s agreements as suggested by Muscat.”   He said that the bill’s requirement of a referendum, or a two-thirds majority in the House, for changes should be introduced into the bill.

Borg also noted that the bill “conveniently” made no reference to no fault divorce, adding that the divorce law should separate the consequences of no fault divorce with the effect of fault in the decree of dissolution of marriage.

Borg also questioned whether it is right that divorce would automatically deprive the innocent party of the right to a legitimate or reserved portion of the inheritance of the other spouse.

Borg argued that the divorce law should depart considerably from separation law, where the court would determine inheritance on a fault or no fault basis. In instances of two-way fault, both would lose the right to succession.

“Given the gravity of divorce, the possibility to retain such a right should be for those at fault in divorce proceedings than in separation proceedings,” Borg said.

At the same time, he insisted that the divorce law should not move away from separation laws as much as possible.

He said that mediation is also an issue, arguing that separation laws place a greater emphasis on mandatory mediation by specific individuals, while divorce laws are more lax in this regard. “Why amend it from how separation is? Should it not be more rigorous and not made easier?”

He also argued that eligibility for divorce should be separation de facto or de jure of four years in all circumstance, and added that divorce would also create complications in instances of maintenance to more than one spouse.

Borg said that with divorce, a second spouse will have a legal right to maintenance “which will surely put pressure on any maintenance stemming from the first marriage, on both spouses and children.”

He added that the court should also be given the powers to ensure that the right of maintenance is guaranteed.

Speaking of his own impending vote, Borg said that he would vote in accordance to his own wishes, and then he would leave it up to the public to judge him as they will during the upcoming general election.

Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo hit out at how conscience is being used “like an on and off switch.” In an incisive address, he questioned how “a security guard from one district could get in [into a civil service job], while another from another district does not. Is this conscience?”

Arrigo warned that MPs are using conscience as a political ball of convenience, and added that it could be “resorted to every time someone needs bailing out from a tight spot. Should the public be allowed to use conscience in the same way, in legal and court matters perhaps?”

Labour MP Helena Dalli also spoke of how arguments used against divorce and gay rights are similar to those used when the right of women to vote (female suffrage) was being debated over 60 years ago.

She said that at the time, it was the PN that attempted to postpone the issue and quoted a statement by PM leader Nerik Mizzi to the Colonial Secretary that it was “not advisable to impose upon the female masses the responsibility which the majority would not be prepared to assume.”

She added the Church had campaigned against female suffrage, insisting that the idea of women being able to vote “represented the notions of only a handful of women obsessed by women’s rights.”

“In both cases, the people wanted to move on despite what the Church was saying. They understood that there are some rights that should be enjoyed by everyone,” Dalli said.