ADULTERY is so frequent among the peoples of the world that many would rather not mention it at all. In our country, both Malta and Gozo, it abounds like our wild flowers. Adultery is an intimate relationship, involving in civil lay terms a sexual intimate penetration, where a married person (supposedly committed to his or her lifelong spouse), has a relationship with another human being of the opposite sex. It is important to bear in mind this very simplified definition of Adultery.

Adultery, therefore, does not fit into the description of two persons of the same sex having a relationship, even though one of them maybe married; or a married human being having some relationship with a species not being classified as human; or two persons whether of the same or opposite sex having an intimate relationship between them but who are not married to one another: Adultery, thus forms an intimate part of the institution of Marriage where one of the spouses, frequently however it is both spouses, relates intimately in a sexually penetrative nature with another human being of the opposite sex!

Adultery was recently very much in the News, about the criminal law situation in Turkey, where the situation was being debated whether or not Adultery should be listed in Turkey's Penal Code as a crime.

This situation would remind those of us students of local laws that in Malta, adultery indeed did form part of our Criminal Code until almost the mid-70's, when the Labour Administration of that time, rightly, eliminated Adultery from remaining a crime. The law as it stood then was highly discriminatory against married women and, therefore, for progressive, social reasons, Dom Mintoff's government had collectively decided to eliminate Adultery from our Criminal Code.

Adultery still remains a sui generis major offence in the Civil Code, whereby in Article 38 of Chapter 16 of the Laws of Malta, one finds that Adultery is one of the main reasons why a married person may request the Family Court to pronounce legal separation between a married couple. Hence, adultery is still with us in the Civil Code and the question is whether or not we should retain Adultery as a separate offence in our Civil Code from other offences that might lead to the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage.

We cannot also consider the fact that Turkey had to make it clear, very clear, to the European Union that it did not have any intention whatsoever to include Adultery as a crime in Turkey's Penal Code. Hence, this means in practice that the cosmopolitan, pluralistic and lay approach of the European Union, to such important institutions as Marriage, categorically refuses to make a crime out of what is essentially a private agreement between two spouses, which if infringed, would be entirely up to the spouses to sort it out civilly between themselves, without involving the machinery of a state to condemn or liberate a married person accused of adultery!

Without in anyway wanting to appear controversial, this is equally apparent what Jesus implied in the New Testament, when according to the very well know Biblical episode, Christ turned on those who where about to-stone-to-death a Woman accused of adultery, and told them that if anyone of them was free from any guilt, then it would be that individual who would be entitled to throw a stone in the direction of the alleged adulteress: none of those who were about to stone the woman did so, but all turned back. And if we want to give this episode a legal interpretation, it might be argued that even in Jesus' time, where adultery punishable by death, as regrettably it would seem to be in some communities still, that adultery should more be regarded as an infringement of a private agreement between two who had promised or committed themselves to one another. Should one or both parties not live up to this promise, then it was in reality up to the other side to forgive and forget, or else break off that intimate relationship: and this is where Divorce is also recognized in The Holy Scriptures.

Lay Situation
The current lay situation that is prevailing within the European Union is that in matters that relate to private and personal basic rights, it is the individuals themselves that henceforth would have to remedy their personal situation, and not the State. When I write not the State, it means that any Religious Institution in any Country within the European Union must not in any way interfere in the remedies that the State provides for the individuals to sort out remedies for their basic rights. These rights incorporate most of the issues that ALPHA: partit politiku attempted to include in its political objectives during the local European Union Parliamentary Elections.

It has been witnessed in recent months in a number of European Union Countries, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other Member States that this lay situation is the trend, irrespective of ferocious opposition from institutions like the Catholic Church, as we are currently observing even in Spain. The Turkey example on Adultery, however, indicates that what was hitherto regarded as an intimate moral-social issue involving the State, Church and the individual, has now been reduced to an individual issue only with the State obliged to provide the social and legal infrastructure, for remedies to be provided for the attainment of each individual's basic rights!

So let Malta take heed of this current lay situation, because what the Government will not legislate for, the European Union will force its hand on our European Union State, because that is part of the social pact for us becoming also European Union Citizens!