Deborah Schembri , the leader of the Divorce Movement, said today that more people were realising the positive aspects of divorce but it was important that they went out to vote on May 28.

Speaking at a public interview conducted by Times news editor Mark Micallef, Dr Schembri said the most important aspect was that divorce offered a choice for people whose marriage had broken down.

Dr Schembri complained of 'intense scaremongering' and said there was too much institutional work in favour of the No camp.

The No camp, she said, was embarking on misleading information, such as by having translated No Fault divorce into divorzju bla raguni.

She defended the concept of No Fault divorce and said the Fault Divorce created a situation where people lied about their circumstances in order to create a scenario where divorce could be granted.

Dr Schembri said that the No Camp was not presenting real arguments to back its opposition to divorce. It was saying that divorce was bad, but not how. Its billboards showed united families but that, Dr Schembri said, was also what the Divorce Movement wanted.

It wanted families to be united, and for people to be able to form new families if their first marriage failed.

Divorce, she said, was not a solution for broken families or domestic violence, but it was a way out of them.

Dr Schembri defended the word bghula used in one of the Divorce Movement billboards, saying it was meant to highlight the state of children born out of wedlock, a situation which needed to be changed.

In complaining of 'moral blackmail' from some quarters, including some priests, Dr Schembri said people should be allowed to decide and vote according to their conscience.

People, she said, should not be forced to live a legal lie where they were married only technically. Measures to strengthen marriages, as well as a measure to offer a way out of marriage when it failed, should be run in parallel and were not exclusive of each other, she insisted.

The Church, she said, had a right to voice its views, while respecting the fact that this was a secular state.

Questioned on her exclusion from practising before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, Dr Schembri said she intended to take action to safeguard her rights, but would not allow this issue to derail the referendum campaign.