Zwieg Bla Divorzju want children to live with hope that separated parents reunite
The anti-divorce lobby today claimed it was against divorce because remarried spouses could be in a position to contest court orders that during separation prevented them from ‘exposing’ their children to their partners.
Lawyer Bernard Grech said his experience in separation proceedings showed that "in four out of every five separation cases", one parent demands the court to enforce the other parent not to expose their children to their new partners – “of either the same sex or the opposite sex” he pointed out.
Grech said a divorce law would make it a problem to enforce this prohibition “because new rights will be created for new families that will be formed.”
When asked by MaltaToday whether this was included in the divorce bill being proposed, Grech said this was not but that the right could be claimed inside the courts.
“Those who don’t want to guarantee this part of the separation contract should vote no… all children wish throughout their life is to have their parents reunite. Divorce will close the door to that hope,” Grech said.
But Grech could not provide any reliable figures on how many separated couples had reunited in Malta. “In my 16-year-career I had nine couples reunite after separating,” he said.
Grech was asked by several journalists whether Zwieg Bla Divorzju was ‘unfair’ about wanting children ‘to live with hope for reunited parents’ instead of a new family.
“There’s a difference between what is possible now and what would be impossible later. Divorce will make it impossible for separated parents to reunite. The damage to the possibility of reuniting would have been done,” Grech replied.
An attempt at levity by Grech at a question from PBS was met with consternation from journalist Maria Muscat, who asked him for his comments on the divorce question during a religion ‘O’ level. “I expected that PBS would ask me about children, the subject of our press conference,” Grech said. But Muscat retorted that she was in her rights to ask any question she felt was of current interest.
Grech said that nobody should impose their views on children, but added that religion “has its own rules… we really should talking about the real issues here.”
Cana Movement president Anna Vella also presented the results of a Misco survey carried out in March which found that 54% said the divorce law would have a negative impact on children against 8% who said it was positive. 71% said divorce would have a negative impact on children, 46% said it was negative on society, and three-quarters felt young people were not ready to go into marriage.
The study further revealed that 30% "do not have an exact idea of what divorce is, so much so that hey said who divorces can remarry both civilly and in Church... this lack of information shows how wrong MPs were in approving a [referendum] motion," Vella said.
"Experience shows me clearly that in a broken marriage, children suffer. There is no doubt that there are cases where separation is needed... But in the majority of cases couples can mend relations. It's a time that requires patience, sometimes sacrifices, but the important thing is that things are mended.
"So if there's something in the country that's weakening the family this will be damaging to couples, individuals and children especially. That's why I'm voting no," Vella said.