Gonzi to reconfirm 'no' vote in parliament on divorce

Gonzi – who earlier this month had voted against the bill on a matter of conscience during the second reading of the bill – had said in his parliamentary speech that he will vote against the bill in all its stages in parliament.

Inspired by the Irish divorce bill, the Pullicino Orlando-Bartolo co-sponsored law is scheduled to come into force as of October 1, and justice minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici will be given until 31 March 2012 to update all other related laws.

Last week, a parliamentary committee that discussed a series of amendments to the divorce bill ended in unanimous agreement between government and opposition.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for the Consideration of Bills, Ċensu Galea, said that he would report to Speaker Michael Frendo in a plenary session this morning.

Owen Bonnici, leading the Labour party MPs, and PN MP representative Francis Zammit Dimech said they had agreed to move and second the amendments together.

MPs from both sides of the House were handed a booklet on Thursday  with all the agreed amendments to the bill, and will be their guide through today’s bill.

The booklet was compiled by Attorney General Peter Grech and Angele Attard, who during the proceedings represented Family Affairs Minister Dolores Cristina.

Today’s plenary session will vote on each amendment, with no debate being allowed, in line with a decision of the House Business Committee.

Following the plenary approval of all amendments, the House will adjourn for 30 minutes – also by decision of the House Business Committee – for the third reading of the Bill in what will constitute a new sitting.

In the committee’s final sitting, Francis Zammit Dimech proposed that any amendment to the criteria for divorce - as set out in the referendum question - should be subject to a new referendum, as the original question was.

Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg said he would have wanted any proposed change to the criteria to be dependent on a two-thirds vote in the House.

PL MP Owen Bonnici who was commended for his input during the committee discussions, said that at the end of the Bill’s second reading there had not even been a two-thirds majority of the House voting for the Bill. It would, therefore, be unwise to tie the matter to a two-thirds vote. Rather, Parliament should be bound to hold a new referendum for any change to the criteria.

Until yesterday, a number of Nationalist MPs were reportedly in contact with each other either by phone or email, in a bid to know if there were any ministers or parliamentary secretaries who either voted no or abstained at the close of the second reading would change their vote.

While the Prime Minister has already made it known that he will vote against the bill in all its stages, he had also raised the issue of maintenance.

He described the ‘guarantee’ for adequate maintenance as a fallacy, only to be upstaged by MPs in committee who agreed that the right for adequate maintenance to be given to the children of divorced parents until they are 23 years old, if they are in post-secondary education, would be extended to all children.

In terms of the Divorce Bill, children of divorced parents had a guarantee of adequate maintenance until they turned 23 if they wished to continue to study beyond secondary level.

There was, however, also a situation where couples in dysfunctional marriages did not actually separate but ignored the needs of their children.

Such children would, henceforth, have the right to also demand adequate maintenance to enable them to further their education. This right is to be included in amendments to the Civil Code.

During the discussions at committee stage, a number of proposals were also dropped. One in particular put forward by Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg who asked if an innocent divorced party should inherit anything from the at-fault party.

Borg lamented that the Bill proposed that at divorce, the couple automatically lost the right to succession, something which they normally renounced to in amicable separation. “But why should an innocent spouse suffer the loss of succession, especially if that party were of modest means?” he asked.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando said that if the couple were no longer married, a decision would already have been taken on the community of assets and pension. He asked why would succession be brought up if the couple were no longer married?

But Tonio Borg maintained that the loss of succession would be both unfair and unjust to the innocent victim of limited means. If anything, this should be left to the court’s discretion.

Deborah Schembri explained that separation and divorce were two completely different aspects. Divorce more resembled annulment, which gave no right to succession but did give a right to part of the pension.

If a divorced man remarried, he would have to bequeath a quarter of his assets to each wife, which would amount to a half.

PN MP Francis Zammit Dimech suggested an amendment whereby the fruits of the innocent party’s work must not be split, only to be interrupted by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando who said that on this line of thinking, the fact that a wife committed adultery because forced to it by circumstances, would weigh in favour of her husband, who should therefore take part of the job earnings of his faulty ex-wife and her new husband.

PL MP Justyne Caruana insisted that there should definitely be no question of succession in divorce.

Deborah Schembri said that if succession was included in divorce, nobody would divorce. It must be made clear that no decision on succession should be included in divorce proceedings.

Contacted for his comments about the final vote that is expected to introduce divorce in Malta, bill promoter Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando said that “the Committee for the Consideration of Bills set up to discuss the amendments to the Civil Code, related to separation and divorce took over 24 hours of often heated discussion time to come to a stage where we now have unanimous agreement with regards to all the clauses.”

He added that “all the suggestions put forward by members from both sides of the house and other interested parties were given their due weight.

“I feel that we will be strengthening the Family Law sector considerably as a result of this concerted effort by parliamentarians and legal experts, including the Attorney General, Deborah Schembri and Angele Attard.

“I find it hard to imagine that any M.P. will be opposed to this happening,” Pullicino Orlando concluded.