Government reaches agreement with Curia over 1992 tribunals’ agreement

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday said that the government had reached an agreement with the Maltese Curia on the amendments to the 1992 Church-State agreement which gave the ecclesiastical tribunals superiority over the Maltese law courts on marriage annulments contracted in the Catholic rite.

Under the agreement - which comprises the payment of Catholic school teachers' salaries and the transfer of church-owned lands to the State - court proceedings on a marriage annulment had to be stayed if a parallel application for annulment was initiated in the ecclesiastical tribunal.

"There is agreement, and we hope we won't be hostage to some situation that will happen on the day," Muscat cautioned on TVM's Dissett, presented by head of news Reno Bugeja.

Muscat also said that no amendments had been presented to the law legislating civil unions for gay couples, by the Opposition. "We've moved an equality law that promotes equality, and I would like to know which rights the Opposition does not want to grant to same-sex couples," Muscat said.

Although having stated in the past that he was not in favour of gay adoptions, Muscat said it was a well-known secret that gay couples were adopting children, as single parents. "It's a hypocritical situation," Muscat said.

Muscat also admitted that the police corps could have avoided embarrassing situations which have put the stewardship of Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit under harsh criticism from the Opposition. "I don't interfere in some investigation and whether the police have picked up the wrong person or not," Muscat said referring to the wrongful prosecution of Daryl Luke Borg, that led to disciplinary proceedings launched against police inspector Elton Taliana. "Certain things could have been handled better," he said.

Muscat also pointed towards the health sector as the government's main area of focus in 2014, saying a report by former Nationalist minister John Dalli would reveal cases in which medicinal drugs that are not required were being stocked with much more frequency than those medicines that demanded frequent stocking. "Do you know that if I ask what medicine stock we have in our hospitals, nobody can give me an answer? We are in a situation that our sellers know more than us what we have in our hands. The system must change."

Muscat also defended a €200,000 spend on budgetary billboards by the government. "It's half what the former government spent on its last budget for 2013."