News | Sunday, 29 March 2009

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Thou shalt not discuss divorce

Prime Minister retracts commitment to ‘kickstart divorce debate’ soon after Archbishop’s anti-secular sermon on Victory Day

Raphael Vassallo
It is now official: eight months after the Prime Minister expressed willingness to “kick-start a national debate on divorce” – and he himself acknowledged the need for such a discussion to take place – Social Affairs Minister John Dalli has finally shot down any notion of the issue being discussed during this legislature.
Replying to a question at a press conference earlier this week, Dalli clarified his government’s position, which, in the light of numerous contrasting statements over the past year, has become the source of much confusion among Nationalist supporters.
“The time is not ripe for a debate on divorce,” Dalli said: directly contradicting his own preceding statement, given in an interview with the Sunday Times in July 2008, that: “a discussion on divorce should start, and it should be a serious debate, steering away from emotions.”
Dalli’s new and diametrically opposed position appears to reflect a change of heart experienced by the Prime Minister, who likewise performed a U-turn on the subject of divorce last year. In July 2008, Dr Gonzi echoed his social policy minister by stating that: “My government agrees that the time is ripe for such a discussion to start.”
However, two months later the Bishops of Malta and Gozo delivered a fiery condemnation of secularism during their homily on the occasion of Victory Day, September 8: forging a subliminal link between divorce, abortion and euthanasia, in the single most aggressive incursion of the Catholic Church into Maltese politics since the 1960s.
The following month, Dr Gonzi climbed down from his earlier position, and retracted his commitment to kick-start the divorce debate.
“My government’s policy is clear, and focuses on the strengthening of the family and the interests of the children,” he said in reply to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Leo Brincat in October 2008, less than 30 days after the Bishops’ tirade.
“I might add that the government’s policy is set down in the (PN’s) electoral manifesto, and reflected in the President’s speech on the occasion of the official opening of Parliament.”
The president’s speech on 11 May 2008 made no reference to the need to discuss divorce, but instead focused on the need to “strengthen families”. Likewise, divorce was absent from the PN’s manifesto.
But for all the Prime Minister’s assertions, the Nationalist Party’s policy on divorce is not exactly “clear”. A number of PN exponents have publicly criticised the government for dragging its feet on this issue. These include Georg Sapiano and at least one PN candidate for the European election, Edward Demicoli.
Divorce is a civil right recognised in all European states and democracies worldwide, and remains illegal only in two countries in the world: the Philippines, and Malta.

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