It happened before official retirement age, therefore it is a resignation
Carol Peralta has stepped down from the bench two years before the maximum official retirement age. In his resignation letter, which he insists is not a resignation letter – well, what is it, then? – he says he has had enough of the “numerous disappointments and disillusions”.
He has continued to insist that he has not resigned but retired, though the government’s press release clearly says “resignation”, and the reasons he gives in his own letter of resignation make it clear that he’s off because he’s had enough.
And yet Peralta insists that it is not resignation but retirement. Maybe he thinks that “resignation” will reflect badly on him, that we will suspect him of being under pressure, by the Commission for the Administration of Justice, to go (chance would be a fine thing, but anyway).
In any case, he may be “retiring” from the bench but he is not retiring. I have it on good authority that he plans to accept a position as chairman of Palumbo’s Malta shipyard operation.