The public law aspects of Maltese divorce law

Abstract

This paper provides a study of the new law on divorce from a public law perspective; it identifies a number of issues which are worth analysing from the point of view of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. These comprise the obligatory referendum mechanism, the relevance of the Interpretation Act1 to the making of regulations under the divorce law, the formulation of a Henry VIII clause empowering the Prime Minister to amend primary legislation through subsidiary law, the administrative law issue of continuing to task mediators with non-mediation functions, that is, to act as conciliators, the lack of a definition of key terms such as ‘domicile’ and ‘ordinary residence’ and, generally, the drafting style of the divorce law, dedicating particular attention to its very first provision. The author will argue that the divorce law could have been a better product from a legislative point of view if certain improvements suggested in this paper were incorporated therein.