Cohabitation Bill aims to protect 'vulnerable' parties

The Ministry for Civil Liberties has opened a consultation session on the new Cohabitation Bill, which will last from today until May 9

The law seeks to regularize cohabitation among couples, both different sex and same-sex, and it also seeks to protect “vulnerable parties” in any cohabiting arrangement.

In a pre-recorded message, Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli said that the Bill is meant to reflect the needs of a “changing society” and that the lack of a concrete law on cohabitation has left a “legal void” in Maltese society – a void which the bill will seek to redress.

Addressing the press, Policy director for the Civil Liberties Ministry Silvan Agius explained that the bill will specifically be targeting couples, and not family members or friends who choose to cohabit.

Aguis said that the Bill will accept “significant diversity” between couples, and identified three key situations in which the law will make the cohabiting couples’ lives easier. The first of these “models” concerns those couples who choose to neither marry nor enter into a civil partnership, and yet still opt to live together.

Under the law, they will be guaranteed basic rights, such as next of kin rights in the event of hospitalization, the right not to testify against their partner in court, as well as the right to remain the couple’s common home in the event that one of the partners dies. The partners will also be allowed to remain in the common home for a “reasonable” amount of time in the event of a break-up.

In the case of partners wishing for a more legally binding arrangement, the law will permit the couple of employ the services of a notary to draft a contract that will suit the needs and wishes of both parties, which could potentially cover issues such as maintenance, residence and the custody and care of children. In this case, the contract can only be changed in the court of law, so as to protect “vulnerable parties” which may, for example, be coerced into changing the contract at the last minute.

Finally, the law will also address the concerns of those who have been cohabiting “over a long period of time, even perhaps before divorce was introduced in 2011”. This model will seek to give some solace to those who may want to formalize their relationship with their partner, but whose partner may be reluctant to do so.

In this case, the law instructs the partner to send a letter to the other, expressing the interest to enter into an officially cohabiting arrangement. If the partner accepts, the letter will allow for basic rights to the cohabiting couple. The partner can only reject the letter if he or she can provide proof that the relationship does not exist.

This model, Agius said, seeks to address the needs of vulnerable people who may end up homeless if the relationship dissolves. 

The document can be accessed online