It’s not about paying the price. It’s about not being fit for public office.

Times of Malta has asked the prime minister whether he thinks that ex Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit should retain his post as head of security for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Malta later this year, in view of the inquiry report which has just been published.

The inquiry board found that Zammit had ordered his officers not to proceed against a man who breached the peace at a police station and tried to intimidate policemen working there. When they issued charges, he ordered them not to deliver the summons and to drop those charges.

He did so, the inquiry board found, because the man in question was his client when he practised as a lawyer until Manuel Mallia (the police minister) plucked him from the law, reinstated him into the police force and made him Police Commissioner.

In other words: abuse and corruption.

The point to be made here is that the prime minister, unlike the rest of us, hasn’t only just found out about the contents of the report. That report has been made public only now, but it was made available to the prime minister back in July. This means that when Peter Paul Zammit was given his position on the CHOGM Organisation Committee, following his resignation from the post of Police Commissioner, the prime minister already knew what he had done.

So exactly what is the point of asking him now whether he thinks Zammit’s position is tenable?

The prime minister didn’t say that in reply. Instead, he said that Zammit had shouldered his responsibility by resigning. In other words, according to the prime minister, he has paid the price and there is no need to punish him further.

That is hardly the point. This is not about crime and punishment or even about shouldering responsibility and being done with it.

This is about Peter Paul Zammit’s character and whether he is fit to hold public office. He quite obviously is not. If he were, he would have understood at the outset how abusive it is to order your men not to issue charges against your friend/client.

This is a major character flaw which means he cannot be trusted with public office.