Violence and fear as grounds of marriage nullity in Maltese civil law : a comparative study with canon law

Abstract

Ever since I started thinking about a topic for my thesis, I always had in mind the subject of " Marriage " which, I believe, could be of great interest to me and to the reader at large. The subject which immediately came to my mind was " Marriage nullity ", more especially so in this day and age when the breakdown of marriages is, unfortunately, on the increase. Upon consultation with my tutors, it was suggested to me that it would be better to concentrate on one particular ground of nullity so as to treat the subject in detail and not superficially - as, indeed, there is much to say on each ground that it would not be possible to deal with each one at great length - and I immediately agreed with this suggestion. After some consideration, I decided to choose " Violence and Fear as grounds of Marriage Nullity in Maltese Civil Law : a comparative study with Canon Law " as the topic for my thesis. Having carried out the necessary research, I came to realise that the topic I had chosen was by far more complicated than I had thought and this, in view of the fact that, whilst the study of " violence and fear " under the Canon Law order proved to be not too difficult in that the material on this topic was abundant, in itself ; under the Civil Law order, on the other hand, my study had to be based on the ways in which the Civil Law Courts have dealt with the interpretation of violence and fear, there being, unfortunately, no specific Maltese doctrine on the matter. In this respect, many a time I had to refer to what Canon Law and the Civil code sections on contracts, in general, had to say on the matter. Having expanded on both Civil Law as well as Canon Law, I hope that I have managed to clearly point out the comparison between these two juridical orders and that I have, in some way, contributed towards the clarification of the issues involved. Here I must admit that the Diploma Course of Studies in " Canonical Marriage Cases, Jurisprudence and Procedure " organised by the Metropolitan Tribunal of Malta, which I have been attending throughout the last year, has made my task relatively easier.