Christopher Barbara is right in some things and wrong in others in his article ‘Equality bills misconceptions’(October 19).
He tells us that the equality bills do not change any existing laws, and abortion will remain illegal, and conscientious objection, as it stands now, will be safeguarded.
To think that the bills pave the way to legalising surrogacy over the heads of the electorate and MPs he calls a misconception. The equality bills are good and noble, he claims, and they are only opposed by conservatives who are against equality.
I’m afraid he is wrong by ignoring the supremacy clause. The bill says that, if the board adjudicating cases decides that a discrimination has taken place, it does not need to respect any pre-existing laws that disagree.
Like beauty, discrimination is very much in the eyes of the beholder. If all the laws must bow before any discrimination perceived by this supreme, supra-legal tribunal, it is very difficult to predict what decisions to expect and probably impossible to appeal them.
And tribunal members are chosen by the prime minister of the day, with less safeguards for unbiased choice than the courts and MPs they overrule.
Pro-abortion board members might decide that, if Mary, who can travel, got an abortion in the UK, then Martha, who cannot travel, has the right to have an abortion in Malta. The law against abortion would have to bow to that decision.
Or a conservative board might decide that the morning- after-pill is illegal, since it discriminates against the unimplanted embryo, perceiving it as having the same right to life as an implanted foetus.
What the majority of Maltese want is a progressive equality that conserves the most precious of our values
Or a board might decide that conscientious objection against performing abortion is a discrimination against pregnant mothers, as a Swedish court has done, which conclusion Italian courts emphatically reject.
That’s what happens with a supreme law that overrules all laws once discrimination is perceived, even though different people perceive it vastly differently. The list can go on to ridiculous and grotesque proportions. Suppose the UK requests the extradition of a person who sets out from the UK on paedophile tourism, which is illegal in the UK. He complains to the board, citing that this is discrimination, because he would not be breaking any law if he set out from Malta. There is nothing to stop the tribunal stopping his extradition, overruling all police, treaties and courts.
Or a Saudi claims that he is being discriminated against because Maltese law does not allow him to punish and imprison his wife at home if she was unfaithful to him, pointing out that other men can do it in Saudi Arabia. That’s what comes out of powers of discretion that know no law.
So, Barbara might be right only if the supremacy clause is struck off. Giving supreme powers to such a low-level and unaccountable tribunal is like giving a sergeant the power to decide where and when to detonate a nuclear bomb! No wonder only Malta thought of making an equality law supreme!
Barbara is right that the ideal of equality and non-discrimination is a noble one. He is right in rejecting those who want conscientious objection to be so stretched to allow confectioners or photographers or plasterers to refuse their simple services to gays or women or Africans or Nationalists or Labourites or the poor.
But I trust that the big majority of the Maltese population, especially those who are inspired by Christianity, is for non-discrimination where convictions and ethos are not seriously and truly compromised.
These bills started off being themselves oppressive, anti-rule of law and a threat to freedom of expression, religion and conscientious objection (the latter still badly needing to be wisely defined for a just balance of rights).
But what the majority of Maltese want is a progressive equality that conserves the most precious of our values. We are not there yet.
Charles Pace, specialist in social policy