The concept of marriage in Maltese civil law and in canon law

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to bring to the fore the position a normal citizen of Malta finds himself or herself in, when deciding to get married. Malta has a population prevalently baptised in the Catholic Church, the figure is said to stand at about 98% . This does not mean that all are practising Christians. From a Sunday Mass Census (2005) conducted in the same year a National Civic Census was conducted by the State, it resulted that about 51 % of the whole population attend Sunday Mass on a regular basis, hinting that this percentage, i.e. 51 %, are practising Catholics. And when it comes to maniages, we still find a great number are still conducted in the Religious/Catholic fonn, while the Civil marriages are on the increase. When Religious Marriages break down, problems begin to crop up since in Malta there is a mixture of two codes, which do not always tally with each other and do cause a number of problems. The two codes which Religious Marriages are faced with are the Code of Canon Law (1983) on the side of the Church, and the Marriage Act Chapter 255 of the Laws of Malta. On the Civil side there was the introduction of divorce in 2011, which created an anomaly because this Law could be applied also to Religious Maniages. This resulted in having men or woman having their Religious marriage "dissolved" through divorce. This presented an ambiguous situation, where if the divorced party decided to remarry, simply because the Religious Marriage is indissoluble, the party ended up with an invalid second "marriage" on the Religious side, and with a valid second marriage on the Civil side. My thesis, after examining what is the concept of Marriage in Canon Law and in Maltese Civil Law, analyses also the Agreement that was reached between the Holy See and the Republic of Malta, signed in 1993, with a second protocol in 1995, and delves into the details to see where the two Codes of Law converge with and diverge from each other. My suggestion in my last chapter is that the contemporary talk about supremacy or otherwise of one Code over the other should be done away with, and the way for the total SEPARATION of the two Codes would be of great benefit to prospective spouses who will be in total freedom to choose from Civil Marriage or Religious Marriage or opt for both.