On Tuesday, November 17, during the second reading of the equality bill, the relevant parliamentary committee dropped the bill’s supremacy clause.
That law would no longer be a supreme law, almost at par with the constitution, that would overrule any law that disagreed with the judgment of any tribunal or court acting on that law.
The very broad definition of discrimination will no longer be open to subjective interpretation independent of what is said by Maltese laws.
This is not the only good news on the equality front. Ranier Fsadni (November 19) draws attention to the progress achieved by government in respect for LGBTI people in Malta.
Besides, at the parliamentary committee there was also the good news (unsurprising to many but reassuring to many LGBTI people) that many religious and civil society entities declared their respect to LGBTI people and condemn those who have claimed that they should still invoke the right to withhold simple services – like those of confectioners, photographers and hairdressers – to LGBTI people.
They argue that, by no stretch of the imagination, can this be justified as a conscientious objection.
Only a few, but absolutely essential, steps are needed to make this law just, sensible and indiscriminatory- Charles Pace
For Church entities, for conscientious objection to be valid it must conform to the internationally recognised qualities of being ‘serious, consistent and convincing’.
Over and over again, we have been assured that an opinion or conviction, for example that certain conduct is immoral, is not prohibited by the law and its expression is subject to freedom of expression (though some hold that the law should say this more clearly). However, it cannot legally be used to justify hate speech, which is punishable by prison.
Besides, all schools are to be expected by law to teach an inclusive ethos, in which all diversity is lovingly and respectfully accepted, a principle that Church schools declare they are committed to.
Not-so-good news is in the fact that, on the very day that the government was fielding a bill to give it a freer hand in selecting ‘persons of trust’, it still has not accepted the more elementary right of schools based on religious or other convictions to choose their leaders on the basis of such convictions.
Besides, the bill still does not make it clear that any entity, such as the Labour Party or tal-Mużew, cannot be forced to use its premises or resources for activities that promote convictions conflicting with its own.
Fsadni’s main questions were how to justify a recourse to a legally-binding regime which only Denmark adopted and why its punishments are no less than draconian. In fact, they are so harsh that they will impoverish people and bankrupt institutions that they target.
May I ask: do we need to model our punishments on those that brought the Irish population to its knees following the English invasion?
Unfortunately, the government is fast-tracking this law without giving time for the scrutiny that Fsadni sees as essential.
We have seen signs of acknowledgement of the maturity and sense of the Maltese population and the need to progress in equality while preserving our most sacred values.
The discrimination against religious symbols has been removed. Similarly, only a few, but absolutely essential, steps are needed to make this law just, sensible and indiscriminatory.
Charles Pace is a specialist in social policy.