Prime Minister Robert Abela said that his government has no plans to remove laws making abortion illegal in Malta, adding that legal amendments set to be debated in Parliament next week were to give legal certainty to doctors and mothers in the case of severe pregnancy complications.

Speaking about amendments to the criminal code concerning abortion, amendments which would allow doctors to act in the case that the mother’s life or health is in serious risk during pregnancy, in an interview on party media Abela said that the fundamental point behind this is “protecting women.”

The law will be debated in Parliament on Monday, with the Nationalist Party already expressing that it will be voting against the reform as, according to them, it will introduce abortion through the back door.

“The Opposition has every right to disagree, but they cannot twist facts in order to sow fear and confusion in people’s minds in order to justify their beliefs. Twisting facts is a disservice to the people,” Abela said.

Abela said that it was the Andrea Prudente case – the American woman denied an abortion while facing pregnancy complications in Malta – which exposed the vacuum in Malta’s laws and created the debate.

He said that doctors already, for many years, carried out the necessary medical interventions when the mother’s life or health is in serious danger, and the proposed legal amendments will enshrine this practice in law.

“This is the only amendment we will do. We are not removing any laws which make abortion illegal. Those laws are there and will remain there,” he said.

However he noted that during the Prudente case it became clear that doctors or the prospective mothers did not have the legal protection for the necessary medical interventions to be made in the case of severe pregnancy complications.

Abela said that the State Advocate had advised during the Prudente case that the doctors would have been exposed to criminal charges and that they would have had to ask for immunity from the Attorney General in order to carry out any medical interventions.

“What, today, gives the doctors and the mother immunity from prosecution?  Nothing beyond a practice which they have been following for years,” he said.

“We want to give the peace of mind that the doctors can make the necessary interventions to protect the mother’s life.  Can you have people who try to abuse of this?  Yes, but whoever tries to abuse of it and carries out a procedure which is not done because of a danger to the mother’s life is breaching existing laws, which will remain, and will be charged as per those laws, so nothing will change,” he said.

“If the Opposition wants to vote against, then it should say why it doesn’t want to legislatively safeguard a woman’s life and her health, and not twist facts and claim that this is implementing abortion,” Abela continued, turning his guns on the PN now.

“That’s why [PN leader Bernard Grech] stated his position in a recorded message, so as not to face the media.  He is trying to sow fears that the government is trying to implement abortion, which is simply not true,” he said.

Bernice Cassar’s murder showed ‘we didn’t do enough’

Asked about the murder of Bernice Cassar, Abela described the case as one which “shocked everyone” and which showed that despite major reforms, “we didn’t do enough.”

“We have done major reforms on domestic violence, but because we had another death it means we have a lot more to do,” he said, before recognising the work of Malta’s institutions such as the police and the judiciary for the work they already do.

He said however that it is useless quoting positive results when there was the loss of life. 

He spoke about the government’s introduction of legislation on femicide and on discussions in Cabinet some weeks ago about the creation of a legal amendment which will allow people to look up the criminal records of their partners in order to see whether they have a history of domestic violence.

He also spoke about an increase in the judiciary, noting that the Chief Justice had said that the courts were dealing with 1,000 new cases of domestic violence every year and that there weren’t the resources to cope.  Abela said that the number of magistrates dealing with domestic violence cases will increase from one to three – one of which will be newly appointed – to deal with the caseload.

Abela also spoke about the need to look at the country’s laws, saying that one must identify whether we have laws which pour water on the fire of tense marital relationships, or add fuel to them and create more cases in court.

He said that he agreed with the notion that society itself can do more.

“Part of this is a question of whether the institutions could have done more, and this is why we opened an inquiry across two ministries, but part is also a question of society, which is everyone’s attitude and how we all behave in our action and words.

He referred to a case this week of PBS television pundit Joanne Camilleri who was subject to sexist and derogative remarks on social media over a mistake she made during a programme about the ongoing FIFA World Cup.

“It is a question of attitude on how society looks at women.  If we keep accepting the patriarchal attitude of seeing women as an object, this is what happens.  This is where institutions must also come in to stop this,” Abela said.

He said that there must also be institutional harmony in the action which is being taken, noting that if there is a protection order in favour of someone – as there was in Cassar’s case – then that person needs to have the peace of mind that it is being backed.

“There must be a robust structure to stop these circumstances from repeating themselves,” he said.

Prime Minister announces plans for new anti-deadlock mechanism

Abela also announced that the government would be pushing for the implementation of a new anti-deadlock mechanism for when matters which require a cross-party majority are stalled due to a lack of agreement.

This is born out of the failure to reach an agreement over the appointment of the new Standards Commissioner, with the PN disagreeing with the nomination of former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi to the post.

Abela said that the PN has yet to give a valid reason for their disagreement, and said that PN leader Bernard Grech had actually agreed with the appointment, and then changed his mind.

He said that the anti-deadlock mechanism would preserve the two-thirds majority requirement in Parliament, but in the case of a failure to reach this, a second vote – also requiring a two-thirds majority – would take place seven days later.

If there is still a failure to achieve the necessary majority, a third vote – this time requiring a simple majority – would take place seven days later.

He said that such a mechanism would not have re-invented the wheel, and noted that the Venice Commission had suggested such a mechanism for the cross-party appointment of the President, and noted that former PN leader Simon Busuttil had also suggested such a mechanism in a governance paper published in 2017.

“The Opposition’s attitude in these discussions was either our choice or nothing, even after they had agreed otherwise.  We didn’t steamroll over them, but the minority force in the country cannot expect to dictate everything themselves,” Abela said.