Children should be heard but not exploited

Should children's voices be heard in their parents' separation cases? Or should they be shielded from the pain and unpleasantness that is invariably involved when a separating couple  battle out its differences in court?

These questions (among others) were catapulted to prominence in the light of a recent, controversial court judgment which landed a 57-year-old mother in prison for denying her estranged husband access to their 17-year-old son.

It was only after the ruling was upheld on appeal, that the voice of the 'child' (who in reality is far closer to an adult) was finally heard... arguing that his mother 'should not be in prison', because he himself had flatly refused to comply with a court order to visit his father of his own accord.

The case made instant headlines - rightly so, given the unpleasant implications - and prompted a Presidential pardon that would eventually release the mother from prison.

So far, so good. But while the pardon itself was broadly welcomed, it did nothing to address the underlying cause of her incarceration - i.e., an apparent anomaly whereby 17-year-olds are roundly treated on the same level as much younger children, despite the obvious differences in mentality and outlook that exist between different age-groups.

Moreover, the legal scenario remains unchanged by the pardon - and it is unlikely to change any time in the near future, as the ongoing political crisis appears to have stymied Parliament's ability to amend laws should the need arise.

Effectively, this leaves us to face the same questions as before, and also raise another. If children should indeed participate in their parents' separation... what procedures should be in place to see to that they are not exposed to unnecessary pressure or trauma associated with the often acrimonious break-up?

Malta's current legal provisions do not provide clear-cut answers to any of these questions, and the otherwise felicitous conclusion to the above-mentioned mother's ordeal leaves us none the wiser than before.

Having said this, it is clear even at a glance that existing legislation needs to be fine-tuned. For one thing, the blanket assumption that a person should be entirely the responsibility of his or her legal guardian all the way until age 18 is plainly a recipe for disaster. It is patently obvious that there are overwhelming differences in outlook, maturity, emotional development, etc, between children of different ages. Yet we hear of cases in Malta where children as young as three or four would be assigned a children's advocate, to ensure that their voice is fully heard during their parents' separations proceedings. At the same time, there are other cases (such as the above-mentioned) in which adolescents in their late teens - who would have a fully developed identity and personality of their own - are unaccountably ignored throughout their own parents' separations... with regrettable results.

This is not a satisfactory state of affairs by any stretch of the imagination, and we cannot continue, as a nation, to rely on the generosity and goodwill of the office of the President (or for that matter the Cabinet of Ministers, which ultimately approves Presidential pardons), to step in and clean up the mess left by the judiciary as it struggle to implement patently flawed legislation.

Taking our cue from the injustice suffered by that 57-year-old mother, the time has clearly come to set aside political differences, and to use Parliament for its proper purpose: i.e., to debate and enact legislation that really does reflect the everyday reality of the same people whose lives it ultimately regulates.

Dalli: second time unlucky

News of John Dalli's resignation from the European Commission yesterday came as what Archbishop Paul Cremona once famously described (in a totally different context) as a "bolt from the blue".

Yet at the same time, with hindsight, it was also rather predictable. Truth be told, while the actual issue over which Dalli resigned was unknown to the local press until yesterday afternoon, the facts now emerging bear an uncanny resemblance to that other controversy that had briefly cost him his Cabinet post in 2004.

Then as now, the issue revolved around a large international company (first SIMED, now Swedish Match) which somehow made use of a local businessman with some form of contact with the former minister: first 'private detector' Joe Zahra - whose incriminating report for SIMED turned out to be entirely fabricated and landed him In prison for his pains); and now, former Sliema councillor Silvio Zammit, who was forced to resign his seat on the council.

Naturally it is too early to predict whether history will repeat itself again, and allow a bruised and battered Dalli to somehow claw his way back into office despite earlier defeats. At a glance it does seem rather unlikely - given the fact that a cursory online search will now make connections between Dalli's name and literally dozens of controversies of various shapes and sizes: from the sale of Mid Med, to Daewoo, to Skanska, to airline ticket procurement allegations, to ties with Iranian shipping lines, to closeness with Gaddafi's Libya, etc.

But for better or for worse, John Dalli has been part Malta's political landscape for over 40 years now. If this really is his final curtain, it would be fair to say a chapter of Maltese history closes with his career.