Marriage registrar shrugs off human rights violation claims
Raphael Vassallo No breakthrough has been reached in the ongoing spat between national Ombudsman Dr Joseph Said Pullicino and acting public registrar Carmel Abela regarding the right of irregular immigrants to marry, despite a meeting between the two public officials held last Wednesday.
“I don’t think that it is fair to state that I ‘ignored the Ombudsman’s recommendations’, but I cannot implement that recommendation despite the law, which I am still obliged to abide by notwithstanding any recommendations by the Ombudsman,” Abela told this newspaper in the wake of Wednesday’s meeting.
The issue arose after Dr Said Pullicino investigated a complaint by a number of asylum seekers, currently residing in Malta, who claim that their human rights were violated when the Marriage Registry refused to issue marriage banns due to lack of proper documentation.
In reviewing the case, the Ombudsman observed that the right to marry is inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and therefore cannot be rendered subject to the constraints of national legislation.
Article 16 of the Declaration states that “men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.”
Article 2 of the same declaration further qualifies that “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
However, the Marriage Registrar supplies a different interpretation of the law. “I am obliged to take my decisions in terms of the Marriage Act (Cap 255) and the Laws of Malta, and this office’s decisions were taken strictly in terms of law,” he told MaltaToday. “The correctness of our legal position in holding that a person who comes to get married in Malta must provide the documentation required is supported by legal advice from the Attorney General’s office.”
Abela denied that his office has prevented anyone from getting married. “If the persons concerned produce the necessary documentation as required by law, their application would be processed as in the case of any other foreigner who wishes to apply for the issue of civil marriage banns in Malta,” he said.
With specific reference to the complaint in question, Abela added: “The applications of the persons in question could not be processed, due to the fact that they lacked the necessary documentation in accordance to the Marriage Act and the Immigration Act, read in conjunction with each other.”
This position, Abela insists, does not constitute a violation of human rights.
“The draft of your question is totally misleading in that it gives the impression that we are denying anyone the right to marry on the basis of race, colour, etc., or on the basis of his or her country of origin,” he said when confronted with Article 2. “All foreigners, irrespective of their country of origin, may marry in Malta as long as they comply with the requirements of Maltese law including the obligation to provide the same documentation or acceptable alternative that any other foreign national seeking to marry in Malta would be expected to provide.”
This unresolved issue is but one of 21 recommendations, issued by the office of the Ombudsman, which have not been implemented since 2006. In 12 of these cases, the recommendations were rejected by the authorities concerned, and the cases are now considered closed. As for the remaining nine cases, including this one, discussions are still under way.
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