Guest post by Sharon Ellul Bonici
Sharon Ellul Bonici has contributed this at my invitation. This means that I will not upload any abusive comments. It is quite possible to put your point of view across without being crass, so please do so. Thank you.
Why I campaigned against Malta’s entry into the EU
– by Sharon Ellul Bonici, Labour Party candidate for the European Parliament elections
The main reason I campaigned against Malta’s entry into the EU was the misinformation being given at that time. I wanted the people to be aware of the disadvantages and to be able to vote while being aware of both sides of the argument. It was the media spinners who labelled me as an extremist and anti-EU, but this is not true. During the referendum campaign my task as a ‘public relations officer’ was to inform, educate and make people aware of the disadvantages of EU membership. However, I never hid the fact that the EU also offers many advantages, and this is documented in print and on film. Still, my job was to inform of the negative aspects. I also believed in my message, for I knew very well that we were ill-prepared and today I see this on a daily basis in Brussels. After all, my campaign was based on the slogan “vote No for a better deal”.
The Yes side and most opinion writers were doing an excellent job at presenting one side of the argument. I was told by several of Richard Cachia Caruana’s knights, as well as foreigners, that my campaign was often used by him in Brussels during negotiations to obtain derogations or transitional periods. ‘Look at what I have to deal with here!’ he would say, referring to aspects of my campaign.
I take my tasks very seriously and put all my energy into whatever I’m working on, and that’s exactly what I did during the referendum campaign. The people had a right to be informed.After membership, my role changed and today my aim is to keep the people informed of what is going on, about their rights and entitlements, and, whenever possible, to put a stop to what affects us negatively. The EU is still evolving and being shaped and we have to be active in the debate and see what’s best for Malta. This does not only relate to the future of Europe but to all EU matters. One has to keep in mind that little ‘competence’ is left to the member states, so MEPs need to serve as watchdogs and to be pro-active in trying to achieve the best deals by tabling amendments to reports and lobbying in their favour.
I have presented myself as a candidate as I have the necessary experience and the knowledge to represent Malta in the EU Parliament. I have been working professionally in the European Parliament for the past five years. During this time I have seen not only missed opportunities by the Maltese government, such as failing to headquarter EU agencies like Frontex and Euro-Med, but also losing EU funding due to sheer incompetence to the detriment of us citizens who contribute to those same funds.
I am contesting so as to eventually be able to be the voice of many in the only democratic EU institution and to do my best to fight for our rights. I want Maltese citizens to enjoy the same rights as other EU citizens. I am a true believer in democracy and I have always said that once we join there is no turning back. Today, as EU members, we have to make the best of it, whether we like it or not and however we view the EU.
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“The main reason I campaigned against Malta’s entry into the EU was the misinformation being given at that time.”
Please, treat the public with the respect it deserves. If you were concerned about misinformation, you should have attacked precisely that: the misinformation, which is a different matter from membership itself. You campaigned against both and, may I add, your campaign involved both. As you say, it’s on print and on film. Once you saw the personal benefits you could reap from membership first hand, you decided to partake, as is your right. But then, be an adult and say you’ve changed your mind.
Oh yes…and I’m sure that your campaign was just what Richard Cachia Caruana needed at the negotiation tables…!
Ms Ellul Bonici,
I am sorry, but quite frankly my only response is “go and tell it to the marines”. I just don’t find you credible and quite frankly, I don’t believe a word you say. Not only did you try to deny my children their rightful place in Europe, try with a zeal that was fanatical to say the least, but after (thankfully) having failed miserably in the referendum which saw the No camp defeated by over 20,000 votes, a landslide by Maltese standards, you still did not accept the people’s verdict and even tried denying our entry into Europe by using the back door. You sunk so low as to campaign against the Nice treaty in Ireland in the hope of keeping us out that way.
Ms Ellul Bonici, you put my children’s future at risk. I will never forgive you for that.
All is forgiven – after all, we’ve had non-smoking lawyers vehemently defending the cigarette industry and supporting the misinformation bandied around with gusto (although I’m sure they didn’t believe a word of it).
Good luck, Sharon (and all of the Labour team).
[Daphne – Good luck to all the Labour team? They can’t all be elected. There are 12 of them.]
“I was told by several of Richard Cachia Caruana’s knights, as well as foreigners, that my campaign was often used by him in Brussels during negotiations to obtain derogations or transitional periods”
So Sharon, you are now saying that your campaign for the No vote was so poor that you actually inadvertently helped the Yes vote. So we have you to thank for the “Yes vote!
This is one of the worst examples of inverted logic that I have ever heard. Please don’t treat us like idiots. You fought for a No vote and you lost. Now accept that, and then maybe you can gather some sympathy votes, but don’t try and take us for a ride again. It just sounds so desperate. Stick to your guns, at least some of us respected you for it, even if we disagreed with your stance.
Oh my God! Come, come Sharon, the other one has bells on. It would have been so magnanimous of you to have simply said something like ”with hindsight, I can see now how wrong I was” – and, especially in the present economic climate, also thank the Lord that Fenech Adami, Gonzi, Cachia Caruana et al were/are at the helm.
I’m looking forward to reading Glenn Bedingfield’s take on things should Daphne grant him a guest post. Unless he gets a ghost writer to scribble something down it should be less convoluted than Sharon’s flowing prose.
– Heqq, issa li dhalna ngawdu ftit ahna ukoll, x’iz-zikk, Cens.
..and what about that champagne celebration, dear Sharon? What were you exactly celebrating? Can you kindly enlighten us?
Many thanks.
I’m sorry, but wasn’t Joseph Muscat an MEP too?
We’ve already sold out.
Ms Ellul Bonici, I am sorry for being blunt, but you do not deserve a seat at the EP. You campaigned for a ‘No’ vote and you depicted the EU as a fate worse than hell – and not, as you are stating now, that you wanted to show us the other side of the coin i.e. the disadvantages.
If it were for you, we would be in the same position that Iceland is itoday. Our SMEs have successfully obtained substantial funds under centralised programmes such as FP6, FP7, eContentplus, eHealth and LLP. I know for a fact, through personal experience, that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Today I have a market of 500 million instead of 400,000. Your leader Dr. Joseph Muscat is on record as saying that he realised the advantages of joining the European Union after he went to work in Brussels, while the rest of us were clever enough to realise the great benefits that the European Union can offer Malta without having to move from our office chair.
Sharon,
Rather than blaming the media, don’t you think that working for CNI and founding the NO2EU campaign might have somehow helped to label you as anti-EU?
For some reason this storyreminds me of Saint Paul. He saw the light on the way to Damascus, andSharon saw the light on the way to Brussels.
‘They misunderestimated me.’
– George W. Bush
Incidentally, there was a constant stream of misinformation coming from the Labour camp in the run-up to the referendum. Anyone who was really worried about misinformation would have tackled it head on.
Had she changed her stance the PN media would not have continued to attack her activities in the European Parliament which she does to safeguard our interest in the first place. You have a choice in a democracy of not voting for Sharon if you don’t want to. You can choose instead to vote for Mr. Yes-Man Casa who sits pretty in his office and votes No to gay rights; you can opt out of a divorce bill, vote against environmental legislation, and other important issues.
I’m sorry to say that you are all stuck in 2003. The Yes and No argument has long been dead and buried. Five years down the line and you’re still debating the Yes and No charade. What Sharon highlighted prior to the referendum was factual and we have experienced most of it already.
Well done, Sharon. Keep up the good work. You certainly deserve my vote and you will get it.
A pathetic exercise in trying to rewrite history. If you wanted to do that, you should have waited for twenty years at least. (other ex-Labour protagonists waited that long). Your arguments and statements in the media against the concept of the EU, against EU membership (rather than highlighting the disadvantages of EU membership, as you describe it) are still vivid and clear in our minds. Try to be respectful, or at least tactful.
Six years are too short to forgive and forget.
“During this time I have seen not only missed opportunities by the Maltese government, such as failing to headquarter EU agencies like Frontex and Euro-Med, but also losing EU funding due to sheer incompetence to the detriment of us citizens who contribute to those same funds.”
To remedy that situation you need to be in Malta’s government and not in the European parliament, surely?
What an incredibly childish defence of an indefensible position. These words could have been mouthed by some wannabe beauty contest competitor after being asked some inane question.
I remember you, Mrs Ellul Bonici, cracking open a bottle of champagne, toasting the Irish ‘No’ vote with KMB (who was toasting it with a cup of coffee). That’s not “campaigning against misinformation”. That’s gloating.
And now you want “Maltese citizens to enjoy the same rights as other EU citizens.” This really takes the biscuit. Had it gone your way, we wouldn’t be EU citizens at all, and there would be no EU rights for us to enjoy.
@Ms Ellul Bonici – You were so fanatical in your anti-EU stance that even Labour distanced themselves from your over-the-top ranting and raving. Now you have the gall to stand before that same voting public telling one and all that you were misunderstood. I suppose everybody was wrong about what you were saying and you really, but really, only wanted us to be aware of ‘ some ‘ disadvantages the EU might have had. I’m sorry, you are not at all credible and an affront to a thinking person.
Steve, if you believe in St. Paul’s conversion, I do not believe in Sharon’s.
Sharon, veru ma’ tisthiex! Tistenna li l-poplu jivvutalek?
@Sharon
First, as Ian pointed out, if you thought it was “misinformation” that was being dished to the public logically you would have campaigned against that “misinformation” not against membership.
Second, I put “misinformation” in quotes because what you describe can under no circumstance be called that. At most you can call it “one-sided”. The point is not academic: it goes to show that whatever information was given by the government was correct and in good faith at the time it was given.
Third — and here’s where real misinformation comes in — it was not a matter of “voting ‘no’ for a better deal”. In 2003 the choice was between “deal” and “no deal”. “Better deal” was, to use the Maltese idiom, trying to sell fish still in the sea.
Here’s the million-dollar question which can now be answered with the wisdom of almost five years of hindsight: is Malta better off or worse off with membership?
I don’t know why you are all so shocked by Ms Ellul Bonici ‘s antics. The Great Dom Mintoff swung from wanting integration with Britain to wanting neutrality enshrined in our Constitution. The 85 years of Partit Laburista’s history are littered with U-turns and absurdities. You don’t have to be mad to understand Lejber’s vision, but it helps.
@ Steve and @ Edgar Gatt
Incidentally, I had already mentioned Paul of Tarsus on another thread tackling Ms.Ellul Bonici’s conversion.
I also suggested, and I suggest again, that one should try to be contemporary in spirit and tackle the case of Xavier Solana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Solana
“On 5 December 1995, Solana became the new Secretary-General of NATO, replacing Willy Claes who had been forced to resign in a corruption scandal. His appointment created controversy as, in the past, he had been an opponent of NATO. He had written a pamphlet called 50 Reasons to say no to NATO, and had been on a US subversives list.[citation needed] On 30 May 1982 Spain joined NATO. When PSOE came to power later that year, Solana and the party changed their previous anti-NATO positions into an atlanticist, pro-NATO stance. On 12 March 1986 Spain held a referendum on whether to remain in NATO, with the government and Solana successfully campaigning in favour. When criticised about his anti-NATO past, Solana argued that he was happy to be its representative as it had become disassociated from its Cold War origins”.
There we go again with the same old MLP/LP tactics : on Running Commentary, Sharon writes to target a sector of our society which does not follow Super One radio, and on Super One radio she speaks as a Eurosceptic to target the die-hard party followers who never read Running Commentary. I bet my bottom euro that we won’t see a Maltese version of this article on It-Torca and Kullhadd next Sunday.
P Shaw – “A pathetic exercise in trying to rewrite history”
The Labour opportunists seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
Corinne – “To remedy that situation you need to be in Malta’s government and not in the European parliament, surely?”
Ah, but then the pay and benefits would not be the same, would they?
Sorry Sharon. You campaigned very hard to keep Malta and my children out of the EU. If you truly believed in your own campaign, this hell that is the EU is no place for you to bring up your children. If you were seeking votes outside the EU then I would happily vote for you. But to have the cheek to capitalise on what you had described as a hell on earth is much too rich and very much in keeping with the PL’s position on the EU. The real pity is that we will likely end with a result that reflects local issues rather than the best-performing MEPs and what they stand for.
I will not be voting for Ms Ellul Bonici as I once heard her say on TV that if we join the EU we will have abortion.i did not get the whole programme but I got that part. Also I must point out that most leftists are in favour of abortion. The socialist group in the European Parliament are the ones in favour of widening access to abortion in the EU.
Thank you all for your comments. I would like to point out to those who said that I changed my stance that I was critical of the EU then, I am still critical today, and I will still view the EU with a critical eye in the future. Also keep in mind that today we are not debating membership. That’s history. Being critical then meant I was against membership. Being critical today means I can criticise any matter related to the EU.
And a correction to what Silvio Farrugia wrote: Abortion was never one of my campaign issues. That is a flat lie.
As far as we’re concerned, until now, we have done nothing but act as the dustbin of the EU and get spanked for it.
[Daphne – There are worse fetishes. Some politicians even give interviews about them and call in the police.]
Hey everyone, the tragedy is that thousands are going to believe, and swallow, everything Ms.EB is telling us. After it’s too bloody late they’ll no doubt then say Mea Culpa….and that’s the price of democracy for you !
Most of the politicians in power in Eastern Europe are recycled ex Communists, who before the collapse of the Soviet Union, contributed to the denial of basic freedoms and democracy. Today these same politicians have recycled themselves, and joined various political parties on both the left and the right wings. Some of them have been appointed to key positions in various institutions.
Unfortunately, it is only natural for certain politicians to be opportunistic, and join the fray, whatever is ‘useful’ to maintain power and status.
I still remember Dr Fenech Adami saying that one day the MLP will try to get credit for MALTA joining the EU . seems we are not far away when considering what was said during the presentation of the MLP candidates for the EU election.
@edgar gatt
.. it was only a sarcastic comment, my friend.
Hey guys, she’s not the only to see the light – I distinctly remember a prominent politician saying that hedging for oil purchases will only be done over his dead body. He is very much alive and – yes – we’re now hedging for oil purchases.
@Mario P. X’ghandu x’jaqsam? A decision to hedge or not is not a matter of principle. It’s a gamble either way. There are sound financial arguments both for and against hedging. But believing, or rather being at the forefront to influence people to believe that the EU will undoubtedly be our doom, and suddenly jostling for a well-paid post to represent us in the EU is a bit rich.
@ A Camilleri – read your own post in reply. I can’t do better than the argument you brought up yourself. As to ‘well paid post’, let’s not be Lilliputian in our arguments. If someone is elected, then they deserve what goes with the post – there are many euro-sceptics in the European Parliament and they do a good service to prevent that institution from going overboard in some of its decisions. Anyone remember that they had regulations on the size of bananas imported to the EU? There are a lot of other crazy regulations.
How sweet! The Europhiles must have thought they were being asked to vote EU-critical. Perhaps the spices spoiled the gravy and all it needed was a heavy dose of chili.
No prizes for guessing who’s after the lemmings’ vote, or selling their motherland for their own personal interests.
“I am not addressing
those lemmings whose vision extends to the European Community – the common market; not
those who still believe that the EU is some “club of stars” with an equal partnership of nation
States cooperating economically. I hoped to address those who are able to differentiate between a
market-economic union and a supranational political union, and who are aware that Malta, in
such a union, would end up as a rock in the middle of the Mediterranean with no significant
power of its own. I wanted to address all those who are selling their motherland for their own
personal interests; those who lost all faith and hope that the Maltese people as a nation can sustain
self-rule as a sovereign State.”
http://mfa.diplofoundation.org/pr/docsoth/sp171101g-S_Ellul_Bonici-Floriana-en-w.pdf
Sharon,
Be a woman. Apologize to the Maltese public about what you’ve done regarding the EU membership vote and if you intend to stand for an MEP don’t do it on the LP ticket but as an independent candidate, otherwise not even labourites can believe you
Sharon Ellul Bonici – “Being critical today means I can criticise any matter related to the EU”
… while milking “the EU” for all it’s worth (and having the cheek to do so after trying oh so hard to keep us out).
Ms Sharon,
What are you smoking? I would like to know. You see, I lost some of my hard-earned money in an Icelandic bank, and I could use some of it to make me feel better.
lino,
I don’t think she should apologize for her opinions, everyone has a right to an opinion.
We disagree with her, because her market consists of people with relatively very low IQ’s.
Something to watch when you don’t make it on the gravy train, Sharon. (PS, @ kev, you can watch it as well :))
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/qTQjZ2uYNrI
PS sorry for the subtitles
As I’ll be voting for the PN candidates, it does not make any difference to me, whether Sharon Ellul Bonici is elected or not, after all. If I were a Labour voter, however, I’d have some concerns because she could turn out to be a loose cannon in the EP.
Take the Irish referendum for instance. The PES, of which Labour forms part, campaigned for a Yes vote and was dismayed when the Lisbon Treaty was rejected. Sharon, on the other hand, cheerfully worked for the No vote and celebrated the result, to the discomfiture of the PES and other parties. This was in 2008, after she had already tried to contest the EP elections as a Labour candidate. Had she been accepted by the MLP and elected, she’d have been with the PES and worked for the Yes side like other socialists (unless she broke ranks and defected to the …erm…”eurocriticals”). But, since her candidature was refused she campaigned for the other side.
What kind of political principles are these? More importantly, what will Sharon do this October when the referendum is held again? Will she join her old mates of the EDD to work against the Treaty and the interests of the PES or remain loyal to Labour and campaign for the Yes vote this time? And if she chooses the second option, how will she explain her change of heart to the Irish voters (“No Paddy, I’ve never been anti-Treaty, just campaigned against the misinformation”)?
Graham C.
If her opinions materialised, it would have been very much detrimental to all of Malta. One must have some cheek to ride the bandwagon one tried to destroy to the detriment of a whole nation. EU critical, my foot. Inconsistency is the word and an inch-thick skin is the mask.
I think you anticipate too much, Antoine. What would have happened is not for you to know. As for the future, may it prove you wrong. Change of heart is what you will have some time down the line.
@P.Shaw “Hey everyone, the tragedy is that thousands are going to believe, and swallow everything M.EB is telling us. After it’s too bloody late they’ll no doubt then say. Mea Culpa….and that’s the price of democracy for you!”
Est modus in rebus, Mr P. Shaw, like we swallowed every word the Prime Minister uttered before the last election. I know so many people who are now saying Mea Culpa, that I lost count of the list. The government promised one thing and is now doing the opposite. The same tragedy, of those thousands who voted PN in the last election, believing every word of the PN promised, and that’s the price of democracy for you!, The promises, may I jog your memory, were to help the people decide whom to vote for, Il-par idejn soddi or for the infamous Sant.
We are now reaping what we sowed, yesterday. I paid 950 euros on my car insurance plus licence. What about the sky high electricity bills that Dr Gonzi tells us are to stop people from wasting electricity. We pay for what we use, so why interfere in our private life. Due to this, we are now living in a regressed state of having heaters left in storage because we cannot afford to use them. Our ACs are left for spiders to hide in during summer. We are once again using fans, when we worked so hard to live in a modern society. Our roads are a disgrace to our country; they look like the bloody Gaza Strip, fatal to all drivers who on a daily bases drive around them. Where are the funds from the EU, we were promised decent roads to drive on way back in 2003.
What about our state of the art hospital, one has to wait years for an operation he rightfully deserves. I could not believe my ears when I heard John Dalli himself, talking about the state the hospital is in, who is to blame…don’t tell me the PL is to blame for this?
Why don’t you talk about the raping of the south of Malta (guess you might live miles away to care), the power station, the fish farms that have now destroyed and killed the sea bed and polluted the once beautiful crystal blue sea. The recycling plant in Marsascala. What about the now proposed incinerator at Marsaxlokk, drafted without having done any health assessment to see how it will effect the people who reside in the vicinity. And, not to forget to mention, another extension at the Free Port near the sailing club.
Where is the paradise we were promised by joining the EU? What has been gained for the common layman and the many families now living in poverty? What about the people who are losing their jobs every day that goes by, Mr.P Shaw? Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Sharon Ellul Bonici might have been against the EU at that time or tried to give us a real picture of what lies ahead, but I have never heard her lie to anyone and all she ever said was the truth, so, if I vote for her and in time utter ‘mea culpa’, at least it will be by trial and error, and not because she lied to us.
Who promised you paradise, Adrian? And if they did, what sort of gullible prat are you to believe them?
@H.P.Baxxter
Good point.
Not only ‘Religion is the Opiate of the People’, politics is as well.
u hallina Sharon…
@Helen…yes I agree with you dear, you can’t trust these guys especially the ones who are now taking the sheep skin off their backs, the ones who are declaring that they are not liberal but conservative. If you happen to be gay, separated or living in sin….pack up guys and leave the Island. There is no place for people like you here, no law will be drafted to cover your sorry ass. But, like I said before those who live in glass houses…..
[Daphne – Oh for crying out loud: homosexuals make their own problems here. The only thing you don’t have that heterosexuals do is the ability to get married – and don’t forget that there are literally thousands of heterosexual couples who can’t get married either, because there is no divorce. How are they more privileged than a homosexual couple? All the homosexual people I know in Malta – men and women – live perfectly normal, happy, contented social lives and home lives. This is the golden rule: you have to accept yourself and the way you are if you want others to accept you, and that doesn’t just apply to homosexuals. The ones who are miserable in Malta are those who, deep down, can’t accept themselves and go around sniffing out rejection and prejudice, which they then find precisely because of their off-putting attitude.Malta is actually an extremely tolerant society, which might seem a paradox given the intolerance at legislative levels. But my observation has been that there are goings-on here that would never be considered acceptable elsewhere, except among the under-class.]
As usual you assume and make an ass of yourself. I am not gay dear Daph (I mentioned separated people and others too), I was just making a point that Tonio Borg finds that drafting a rent law to protect minority groups is out of the question, being a consevative. I do not give a hoot really because I don’t need any protection from anyone, I work and thank’s God never asked for anything in my life, from anyone. And who’s fault is it that we do not have divorce!!!! Why did Gonzi opt out of the divorce report in the EP to facilitate EU citizens from optaining a divorce in an aother EU country of residence or work? Why is the PN against divorce in Malta?
I thought by joining the EU these issues would be something of the past. The PN are taking us back to medival times.
[Daphne – No, you are the one making an ass of yourself, by imagining that there can or even should be such a grotesque thing as a law to protect people who have no right to protection against eviction. I am going to repeat this until I am blue in the face: marriage is not a religious thing. It is a civil contract which gives the married parties rights that they would not have if they were not married. Hence, if you want those rights, you get married. If you don’t want those rights, you don’t get married. But you can’t have your cake and eat it: you can’t avoid marriage and still get the rights. Also, and this is a crucial point: if people avoid marriage so as to avoid those rights, how then can the state arrogate unto itself the ability to foist those rights and obligations on them regardless of the fact that they are not married and have sought thereby to avoid them? The act of living together shouldn’t give people obligations towards each other. If they want those obligations, they get married. Obviously, if they haven’t got married, they don’t want them. People like you miss the wood for the trees. The problems are (1) the absence of divorce and (2) the absence of civil partnerships for homosexual couples. If Malta were to have those two things, then all this fussing about ‘rights’ for cohabitees would be ridiculous nonsense (as it already is). If you want rights, you marry and get them. That’s what marriage is for.]
No need for hysterics Daph,I do not have to get married to gain rights, I own my house, and I do not need any rent laws to protect me, so here goes. But in my opinion, why should one have to get married to have rights, why has marriage got to be the answer, as you stated. And who came up with the promises to draft cohabitation rights for the cohabitees, the PN, but just as usual promises and promises but never to be implemented. Just for votes, and then pahhhh, never to be heard of again. So spare me the empty words, I don’t need them. I am happy as I am, but others are not, and no man is an Island.
[Daphne – Sigh. Look, Adrian, let me explain it to you in language you might be able to understand. You say you own your own house – bully for you; I admire that kind of initiative and hard work. You also say you are not homosexual. So let’s say you start going out with a woman and quite like her. After a while, dropping her off at her house every night gets to be a little ridiculous, especially if she still lives with her parents or shares a place with friends. So you say, look, why don’t you move in with me for a while, let’s see how it goes. And she does. A year later, her charming idiosyncrasies have become major irritating habits and if she says Cheerio once more when she heads out of the house you are going to find it difficult to restrain yourself from hitting your head against the wall to avoid doing something much worse. In addition, you’ve met somebody else and you’ve fallen in love. You ask your live-in girlfriend to leave. She consults a lawyer and says, sorry honey, but I have rights. You can’t throw me out. I’m here to stay and you’ll have to pay me to leave, or buy me another place.
Do you still think giving rights to people who live together is a good idea?
To answer your question as to why you must get married to have rights: simple – marriage is a civil contract by which the two parties undertake various things, among them those rights and obligations. In all areas of life, contracts regulate agreements between people, and this is no different. What you are saying here – that people should have rights simply by dint of living together – is like saying that if I break into a house and squat in it, it becomes mine.]
I understand your argument, believe me. First of all a separated couple can buy property together and live as a married couple, if they break up, just like in their previous marriage, split the cake in half. Now you said, get married if you want rights, hear this, I know a couple who were married for 20 years, the husband was givin the house before he married, to him, by his father, do you know, the wife was thrown out of the house empty handed, as the bastard had the house in the company name, where were her rights in marriage dear? I can give you facts, it’s not fiction. I was refering about rights in the rent law, and not in other cases. Loop holes are what they are, and people use them, marriage rights my foot.
[Daphne – You really have a lot to learn about the law, don’t you? Well, this is how it works. Whatever you own before marriage is yours alone. So if you own a house before marriage, get married, and move into it with your spouse, your spouse has the right to live there if it is the marital home, even if the marriage comes to grief, but does not have the right to 50% of the property. Regarding the house being owned by a company – what can I say? Ignorance of the law is no excuse: if she was stupid enough to move into a house without checking who or what owned it, then she has only herself to blame. Trust is one thing; blind idiocy is another. The law is there to protect the weak not the stupid. And going to live in a house owned by a company is not a ‘loophole in the law’. This woman could have avoided all her problems by refusing to go an live in a house that belongs to somebody else.]
Well done, Sharon! This country is full of U-turns and you`re a Maltese just like the others who pretended to be the saviours of our beloved country! KEEP IT UP SHARON! You`re the one who is showing your face, your truth and your courage against “injustice” and “illiteracy” in this country.