News | Sunday, 05 April 2009

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It’s the Lisbon Treaty, stupid - Sharon Ellul Bonici

Raphael Vassallo
LABOUR MEP candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici has returned fire in an exchange of blows with the Gift of Life Foundation, arguing that the latter’s campaign against her allegedly pro-choice views was misdirected, as the real threat comes from the Lisbon Treaty.
In an article posted on her personal blog (www.sharon4malta.com), Ellul Bonici accuses the pro-life organisation’s CEO, Paul Vincenti, of using a personal attack on her campaign to disguise the fact that he himself “missed the wood for the trees”: insisting on a useless Constitutional amendment against abortion, which would be superseded the moment the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by all member states.
“Having placed all their efforts towards amending the Maltese constitution, (Gift of Life) now realise they have committed a major error by ignoring the Lisbon treaty. Being uninformed, they were not aware that even if they attained their goal, the Lisbon treaty could eventually nullify their prize in a day’s work,” the PL candidate wrote.
Ellul Bonici – who campaigned both against Malta’s membership to the Union, and also specifically against the pan-European ratification of the Lisbon Treaty – claims that should the treaty ever come into force, it will automatically empower the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to overrule any Constitutional provisions to safeguard life from conception.
In fact, part of the Irish resistance to Lisbon comes precisely from the pro-life lobby, in a country which already has a pro-life clause in its Constitution.
“In matters relating to abortion, the only way the ECJ can interfere today (i.e., under the Nice Treaty) is by way of the Service Directive in rulings related to cross-border health services – more so since the ECJ has long defined abortion as a ‘service’ under Community law,” Ellul Bonici wrote in her blog.
“This situation changes with the Lisbon treaty. With the annexed Charter of Fundamental Rights, the ECJ would gain jurisdiction over the human rights of all European citizen... At any point in time, the ECJ may be asked to decide on a case related to abortion and, as the case may be, rule that abortion is a universal right within the EU... This ruling would override national laws and constitutions, so GoL’s efforts would have been in vain.”
Ellul Bonici was accused this week of harbouring pro-choice views, after Gift of Life CEO Paul Vincenti expressed “alarm” at a comment posted by the Labour candidate on a Maltese pro-choice Facebook group seven months ago.
On her part the PL candidate claimed to have received numerous threatening phonecalls and messages from Vincenti, who allegedly requested her to public declare herself to be pro-life in writing, or “face the consequences”.
Gift of Life denies threatening Ellul Bonici, although the organisation admitted in a press statement that it “did persist in attaining a clarification.”
GoL also admitted that in a meeting Labour leader Joseph Muscat on 17 March, Paul Vincenti asked for the former No2EU campaigner to be struck off the party’s list of approved candidates: a request which was turned down by Muscat.
Meanwhile, Gift of Life’s crusade has been taken up by Nationalist Party candidate Roberta Metsola Triccas Tedesco, who issued a statement this week claiming that Ellul Bonici “has declared herself in favour of the legalisation of abortion in Malta.”
However, Ellul Bonici has defended her position on female reproductive rights as “realist”, but has said she will abide by the Labour Party’s official pro-life policy when voting on related issues.

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