A mandate on divorce was the best way to go (1)

In my opinion the referendum due to be held in May regarding the introduction of divorce in Malta is sheer waste of public money. The original position of the Labour Party regarding this matter, that is, ruling out the need of a referendum, was one pointing in the right direction and made with good sense.

In the first place let me make one point clear. The Catholic Church has every right to teach and give directives to her members regarding divorce, and the faithful are morally bound to comply. However, what right has the Church to interfere with the rights of non-Catholics regarding marriage and divorce?

Let us take civil marriage as a similar example. For the Catholic Church marriage is a sacrament, and anyone who is a Catholic should marry according to the holy rites of the Church. Notwithstanding, has the Church any right to intervene how non-members should marry?

Therefore, marriage and divorce are two separate civil rights to be enjoyed by non-Catholics. If the majority of voters in this referendum vote against the introduction of divorce that would mean that the Catholic majority would have opted to deny this civil right of divorce to the minority. Is this the democratic way of doing things?

Now, who is it that has the duty to see that the rights of the minorities are safeguarded? It is the government, because it is only the government who collects taxes from the whole population. If the government fails to do its duty towards minorities that would mean it is not a democratic government, but one with factional interests, which caters only for majorities, as it pleases it, against the interests of smaller groups. This is surely not the right way of going about things by a democratically elected government.

For me it was strange news when I heard that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had said that he would ignore the result of the referendum if the majority vote was in favour of divorce, and in Parliament he would vote against the divorce Bill.

I fully understand that as a Catholic, personally Dr Gonzi has every right, or rather is duty-bound, to act according to the directives of the Catholic Church, but in his capacity as a Prime Minister he is also duty-bound to safeguard the rights of the non-Catholic minorities both in respect of civil marriage and divorce.

The Catholic Church should keep on delivering her teachings regarding civil marriage and divorce and all Catholics are duty-bound to listen to her.

But the Prime Minister and his government, in their official capacity, are also duty-bound to safeguard the rights of the minorities, even if these rights go counter to the teachings of the Church, because the government is there for all the sections and sectors of society and no group or section, however big, should be privileged over the other.

Since the present government has no electoral mandate to introduce divorce, the two parties in Parliament should have reached an agreement to simultaneously seek a mandate in the next general election.

That is why, at the beginning of this letter, I said that the coming referendum is sheer waste of public money, because in a democratic country no one should have expected the Catholic majority to agree with the divorce proposal or otherwise not to impose its will on the other minorities.

The present government should have taken the example of the introduction of civil marriage in Malta, which, as everybody knows, was introduced without wasting money on silly referenda.