As expected the coronavirus epidemic has dwarfed all other issues, political or otherwise, putting everything on the back burner. This, however, does not mean that there are no issues which are still relevant, or that our attention need not be drawn to them.

One of the issues which is becoming even more relevant, owing to recent developments, relates to the right to conscientious objection.

Although this right is usually associated with compulsory military service, it has wider application. In matters of conscience, when these are founded on reason and do not cause irreparable harm to others, such as refusing to give blood transfusions, an individual is entitled to object to a particular process which runs counter to his religion or other beliefs.

A recent case (Grimark and Steen) before the European Court of Human Rights raised this issue. Two Swedish midwives objected to participating in abortion practices. They cited freedom of conscience and conscientious objection.

The Swedish courts refused their claim. The matter went before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (a Council of Europe, not an EU organ). The matter was dealt with by three judges who act as a sifting mechanism. They unanimously declared the application to be inadmissible!  Had one judge objected, the matter would have been referred to the normal chamber which decides these human rights cases composed of seven judges.

To refuse to even consider on the merits such an application by blocking access to further consideration on such an important matter beggars belief. Former European Court judge Vincent Degaetano in an interview in the international media   described it as “a dangerous precedent”. 

Apart from the merits of what these courageous midwives, acting against the main current of Swedish mode of thinking, and irrespective  of whether they were right or wrong, the merits of the  case deserved to be decided by a normal chamber of seven judges.

As matters have developed, three judges out of 46 have blocked access to full deliberation on such an important matter, putting the very existence of the right to conscientious objection under threat. The judge in respect of Malta was one of the three judges.

Some provisions of the so-called equality bills being debated in parliament constitute a real threat to the independence of schools run on a religious or faith-based ethos

This brings me to a second consideration on a similar matter. Parliament is currently debating the so-called equality bills; there are serious deficiencies in the bills, and some provisions constitute a real threat to the independence of schools run on a religious or faith-based ethos. Curricula will have to observe strict equality norms, religious symbols in public are allowed only if of a cultural value, and services have to be provided without any provision in favour of this right to conscientious objection.

I appeal to the minister piloting the bills to take into account this widely recognised right, lest it be put in peril by the ‘liberal’ lobby ensconced in his ministry which he inherited from his predecessor. The matter is further aggravated by the fact that the law declares itself supreme so that any other law which is inconsistent with it is not applicable.

There must have been the firm conviction in the drafters of the bills that there are other laws which would be so rendered. During the debate in Parliament Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis promised that nothing which is illegal today will be made legal when the bills are enacted into law. So why retain the supremacy clause?

This latter clause for instance, can be interpreted in the following way if its stands as it is: a homosexual couple – who has at law the right to adopt a child – would like heterosexual couples desire to have a child of their own.

So they claim that they have the right under the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the bills to seek recourse to maternal surrogacy, namely the hiring of services from a woman to bear their child with the reproductive cells of one of them.

This is expressly prohibited by the Embryo Protection Act. However, since such an act would rank beneath the new law, the latter would prevail, and maternal surrogacy would stealthily have entered the Maltese legal system without any debate in parliament or in the country in general.

In the light of these possible developments, it is even more important that a provision relating to conscientious objection is introduced.

Of course this should be hemmed within parameters which prevent abuse such as the one protecting life, and the claim such right should be reasonable.

But to exclude the introduction of this provision will amount to the thin end of the wedge, where matters such as a maternal surrogacy or even worse things could be introduced behind our backs.

The opposition has proposed a reasonable provision on conscientious objection. I think Zammit Lewis is a reasonable man.

He should make his own decisions and strive to reach a consensus on this bill, particularly   on this matter which affects us all.   

Tonio Borg, former EU commissioner