Labour MP proposes mechanism for prompt change of illegal laws

Owen Bonnici’s proposal comes in the wake of a judicial protest presented by Marco and Joanne Cremona, after they were not allowed to carry on with their adoption process because they had not been married for three years, as required by a law which has been deemed in breach the constitution.

A spokesperson for Family Minister Dolores Cristina has confirmed with this newspaper that a first reading of a law amending the current one has been presented to parliament.

However, the law has not been approved before the summer recess.

But despite the Minister’s decision to table a bill, the same law – which is being changed – was invoked to stop Joanne and Marco Cremona who have been married for only two years, from continuing their adoption process just a few weeks ago.

“It is unconceivable that a law already declared to violate human rights is invoked by a government agency as if nothing has happened and we continue to suffer simply because the authorities are taking a long time to change a law to make it conform to a sentence issued by the constitutional court,” the couple argued in their judicial protest.

The issue of laws violating the constitution was originally raised by Owen Bonnici in a parliamentary question addressed to former speaker Louis Galea last January. Galea replied that as things stand whenever the speaker is notified by the law courts that a
law violates the constitution he is only obliged to table the court judgements in the first sitting after receiving the information and it is up to the government to amend the laws.

In past decades the speaker presented 29 judgements which deemed Maltese laws which violate the constitution. But the speaker was unable to supply information on how many of these laws have been effectively changed and how long it took for the changes to be enacted.

The list presented by Galea included the sentence issued by the constitutional court in April 2009 which which confirmed that Ruth Debono Sultana and Silvio Debono who wished to adopt a child were being discriminated against on the grounds that they were married.

The first court had already concluded that the law accords different treatment to married and cohabiting couples. While the married couple has to wait three years in order to adopt, a cohabiting couple did not have to wait for one of them to apply to adopt.

This, said the court, was discriminatory treatment in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights for it was not justified, objective or rational. The Department appealed from this judgment to the Constitutional Court which declared that it agreed with the first court that the law discriminated against married couples as it imposed a time limit upon them after which they could adopt.

The court therefore confirmed the first court’s judgment and ordered the law amended so as to remove the requirement that a married couple live together for three years before adopting.