The idiotic Divorce debate which has - as so often has occurred in the past - remerged recently is the fruit of hypocritical minds that to protect their outward interests in our country from time to time indicate to us that we are being governed in a dictatorial democracy. This type of democracy runs counter to the Malta Constitution, violates the European Convention of fundamental individual rights and their basic freedoms, is clearly opposed by the rest of the European Union [ a few thousand vis - a`- vis 499,800,000 European Union citizens - what arrogant audacity ! ] and is a frontal insult to us Maltese who since April 2004 are equally European Union citizens and have every right to be treated as the rest of the EU citizens are respectfully accorded their basic rights in each of the remaining 26 EU full Member States.

Our political leaders are not dim-witted as they are very much aware of the realities prevailing in our country, but they are hypocrites who to protect their parliamentary seats and their political parties` interests are prone to scratch heavily the backs of an autocratic institution in our country which though decrepit and corrupt still manages through misled spiritual manipulation to influence the more ignorant elements of our electorate. The liberated among us should see to it that they will not vote for these two political parties who do not have the overall interests of the political sovereign in our country, that is the thousands who in practice have de facto dissolved their respective marriages and are through no fault of their own living their own lives run by their own particular rules!

In our country, foreign Divorce Judgements and / or Decrees have been recognized since the coming into force of our Marriage Law in 1975, thanks to a governing Administration which truly had the overall interests of our people at heart ,even though that enactment did not go to the finishing line , namely of having a local procedure whereby the local inhabitants could obtain a Divorce in their own country ! The only way to dissolve a Marriage in my country is by Civil or Ecclesiastical Annulment though the latter is obtained through a Tribunal that does not follow our Laws and in a true Democracy that practises the Rule of Law, it should never be recognized in our jurisdiction: give unto the State what belongs to the State, and to God what appertains to God ! Hence in reality, for the ordinary, liberal citizen, the only manner to dissolve a marital union is by a Civil Annulment which means that the Civil Court must be convinced that that Marriage in the light of a set of rules had never existed – try and explain that piece of legal nonsense to 499, 700, 000 million EU citizens approximately !

The Nationalist Administration in 1995 betrayed the sovereignty of the Maltese people and the constitutional independence of our Civil Courts of Justice when in conjunction with the Catholic Curia , the Marriage Act was hideously amended to put the Catholic Curia in a privileged position insofar as Marriages contracted in accordance with Catholic rites were concerned , so that an individual marrying in accordance with the Catholic Church rites may legally be impeded from dissolving a marriage by our Civil Courts, if the other spouse determines to legally block this manoeuvre by instituting an ecclesiastical annulment procedure before a foreign tribunal : where is the question of sovereignty here as raised by the Government-controlled Department of Information in a public statement issued on Friday, January 5th, 2007, and quickly taken up on the following day as a personal opinion in another newspaper obviously very close to the Government of the day ? Why this arrogant audacity by these social idiots who apparently innately believe that the electorate are as idiotically-manipulated as themselves ?

Discrimination is being dictatorially imposed against my people as no Government in a true democracy has a right to deny its people what other EU citizens a priori take for granted. MALTA is the laughing stock of Europe and the European Union should impose sanctions against my country, even though I write this last comment with a heavy heart. This political hypocrisy must be halted. It has got nothing to do with our sovereignty, as one illustration just referred to amply indicates. Our matrimonial regime is in utter chaos because of lack of local divorce procedures : Malta has the highest incidence rates proportionally of de iure separations and a most chaotic state of affairs by the numerous de facto separations, countless cohabitations , and adulteries that are consequently committed in direct violation of our law……but what do our politicians care of these grave, horrendous injustices being perpetrated against my people, as long as these politicians` avaricious and egotistical crave for power is satisfied……to hell with people ` s rights : evidently an intolerable situation that the European Union cannot permit to reign any further in our democratic country. Again, therefore , let the Department of Information go itself to hell [ and whoever wrote that idiotic statement, even if that statement was agreed upon over some lunch by the figuring heads drafting it ! ] when it relates to the sole discretion of the respective member state !

Marriage is a personal matter: if it does not work out, for whatever the reason, the couple must determine how to terminate peacefully that union. If they cannot come to terms, then their country has to provide the remedy how that union is to be dissolved. That is all there is to it….the politicians do not come into the argument at all [ most of them have enough snakes & ladders in their own private lives ], the Catholic Curia cannot interfere by God `s Order into the internal affairs of a sovereign State and the free, private rights of the individuals in that State, and the Department of Information had better put its head in a rubbish heap because that is where it belongs! So when will the time come that a local couple be entitled to declare locally that they want a Divorce, as all other couples in the rest of the European Union can easily do : if we are now full members of the European Union, it is not definitely the Department of Information that will determine how local couples are to conduct their own private lives !

What are we doing about the fundamental principle that EU Citizens can freely roam in the whole of the EU and even obtain residence permits in any of such Member States ? Let the idiotic – I emphatically and wholeheartedly repeat - Malta DOI not dare come forth with such dictatorial statements once again or attempt to embellish their statements by implanting in them such phrases as substantive law to show to one and all that the Statement was not really meant for the proletariat. The DOI is there to serve the people not some idiot who hides behind the DOI to attack some organization……let the DOI bear also that in mind !

Let this Divorce Debate come to an end once and for all by introducing what we are already recognizing from foreign jurisdictions, namely a local Divorce Law. Failing which, the people could not care less what the Curia states, and the utter chaos in our matrimonial regime will just keep on increasing, with more separations, more cohabitations, more infidelities, more children born out of wedlock, and an infrastructural ,inadequate Family Court that cannot already cope with the overloaded workload it already has before it. May God illuminate our local idiots !

[Dr Emmy D. Bezzina has been in private practice as a litigious lawyer for almost thirty years. A favourite area is Family Law ,Constitutional Law & Human Rights. Dr Bezzina is the NGO Chairman of the Malta Divorce Movement and Leader of ALPHA – Liberal Democratic Reformist Party. E-Mail to: alpha@emmybezzina.org. Web Site : www.emmybezzina.org. ]