From Dr E. D. Bezzina LL.D.

Without in any way desiring to be misunderstood by people who I know are well-intentioned, and without in any way wanting to be interpreted as pulling the leg of such well intentioned persons, it is unacceptable at law and an insult to the intelligence of the individuals affected, individuals who are European Union citizens in a sovereign independent Republic member State of the European Union, that these individuals be instructed to make a declaration in civil annulment lawsuits. Be they plaintiffs or defendants, they have to declare that they do not have any pending legal annulment procedures before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of the Malta Curia, which in any case follows Canon Law. This is a law that is foreign to our established democratic legal principles, a law which is not acceptable to the European Union, a law which violates the Constitution of Malta and runs counter to the European Convention of Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms, as we also had the opportunity recently to introduce in a historic Malta Court of Appeal decision on 8 November, 2004.

Citizens filing lawsuits in our Courts of Justice, in accordance with the established principles of European Law and the added benefit that they can take their case to the European Court of Justice, do not have to make such unconstitutional declarations, which means that these free and independent citizens have to bow their heads and acknowledge the existence of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal.

Those who are well-versed in the subterfuge as to how Malta’s Marriage Act was amended in 1995 (a public scandal which should be condemned, but which many appear to have an interest in keeping their mouths shut on what happened during the secret negotiations between 1993 and 1 March 1995), our citizens should not have anything to do (if they do not want to), with the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, apart from the fact that whatever takes place before our independent Courts of Justice must not and under no circumstances have to be subjected to some sort of supervision by the Ecclesiastical Tribunal when in reality the procedures before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal are not compatible with a pluralistic and cosmopolitan member State of the European Union, which Malta is now.

Hence, with all due respect to these well-intentioned competent authorities, persons applying for a civil annulment to our Courts of Justice, should not to be made to submit a declaration as to whether they have any legal procedures pending before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal or otherwise (irrespective of what the 1995 amendment to our Marriage Act states), because the people of this free, independent and sovereign State are not to be ruled by an institution which clearly not only violates the fundamental principles of the rule of law, but downgrades women in such a way as to publicly assert that some roles in its internal mechanism cannot be fulfilled by women which, therefore, in turn ridicules our Gender Equality Act!

Hence, this is a modest appeal to the powers-that-be, particularly our representatives in the House of Parliament that they must immediately restructure and amend the Marriage Act so that proceedings before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal are completely disassociated from proceedings before the Civil Courts of our State, and such humiliating declarations that independent minded citizens are obliged to make before our independent Civil Court be eliminated once and for all!

Emmy D. Bezzina

VALLETTA