From Dr E. D. Bezzina LL. D.

The only authors of a marriage are the couple who voluntarily, out of their own free will, opt to contract a relationship intended to be a lifelong commitment out of which, in the vast majority of cases, offspring are born, which forms the basis of a family unit, the source of a particular society in general.

Marriage is formulated on a number of elements: the concept of love, lifelong commitment, dedication to forming a family, trust and constant cooperation in renewing the principles on which a couple would have entered into that marital union.

When anyone of these fundamental principles disintegrates for whatever reason, the marriage is no more and procedure has to be available in any particular society to justly dissolve the marriage of a particular union: basically we refer to this as divorce.

This state of fact has to be respected. Failing to respect it causes unnecessary hardship, which leads in most instances to the breakdown of law and order in the sense that couples start to behave in a disorganised manner, such as random sexual relationships, children born out of wedlock, cohabitation, which in most cases signify frustration on the part of those involved who are sacrificing their lives without being protected by the law. This state of affairs took a long time to be controlled. In Malta this has not been done. The result is a chaotic situation that has led to an animal kingdom, which our State cannot control anymore because it has failed to provide an adequate legal framework.

My country has voluntarily joined 24 other countries, which together constitute the European Union. The latter has, as an institution, recognised the need to regulate one’s personal affairs: Malta is trying to be obstinate because of the consequential, political fears on the part of our two major parties and their control of the local media. This picture, under no circumstances, will not remain this way for much longer, as now we are equal members of a Union, are European Union citizens, soon to be governed by a European Constitution that does not refer to any particular faith but accepts the freedom of each of its current 450 million citizens to regulate their basic, private and social rights within a structured legal framework.

Malta has sooner rather than later to follow suit and the European Union will see to it that, directly or indirectly, a local Divorce Law is formulated to eliminate the current discrimination between European Union citizens who all have these a priori recognised legal basic rights, except for our tiny country, which, thanks to a few hypocritical minds who want to safeguard their own avaricious interests, paint a picture that is nowhere to be found in current Maltese society. Divorce must be locally legalised for local citizens, as on another level it already exists.

Emmy D. Bezzina

VALLETTA