The golden rule for any person entrusted with the power of passing judgment on others should be to always avoid becoming the centre of controversy.

The position of the commissioner for standards of public life has remained vacant for months and has now become a political impasse between the two sides of the House. At stake is the two-thirds majority vote needed for the selection of a new candidate.

The government’s solution is to unlock the impasse by reducing the legal requirement to a simple majority decision so that it can unilaterally appoint any one commissioner without having to reach any consensus.

Think of it. The prime minister will have a free hand in appointing as commissioner a Chris Cardona, or a Konrad Mizzi, or a Justyne Caruana and have them be the watchdogs that decide cases of abuse of power with respect to the highest levels of public life. 

So, in a way, it is fortunate that Robert Abela has chosen a man whose qualifications and reputation are somewhat superior to these latter-mentioned species and things could have remained fortunate had the ever-arrogant prime minister not disclosed to the public the name of his preferred choice.

This untimely and irresponsible act has damaged the reputation of Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi as it has unfairly cast upon him the suspicion that he has been selected for other than proper motives.

And what is more surprising is that the chosen one himself does not see that Abela’s gaffe, caused by his lack of maturity and political experience, has soiled any future hope that he can enjoy to be seen to carrying out the duties of commissioner in complete unfettered independence. All his decisions will be viewed with cynicism and partisan reference as to how he once was a Labour Party candidate.

You spend a lifetime building a reputation and it only takes one day of stupidity for you to undo it all- Eddie Aquilina

Anyone in his predicament would do himself a favour by becoming unavailable.

It is also the case with Magistrate Nadine Lia and the reported serial incidents of her behaviour on the bench in respect of the NGO Repubblika’s challenge to the unexplainable lack of follow up on the Pilatus inquiry findings.

Recently, the Constitutional Court made a decision, on a technical gap in the law, which basically boils down to a situation whereby, unless the challenger was also the “victim” of police inertia in pursuing criminals as directed by an inquiry, the deciding magistrate need not be impartial or be seen as impartial and so could also have a clear potential personal interest in the outcome.

In theory, as the law stands, it would be possible for Lia to decide the NGO’s challenge even if she herself or her own immediate family members were the subject persons of the challenge. The law is an ass.

The NGO challenger has argued that the magistrate is the daughter-in-law to none other but Pawlu Lia, a lawyer who has represented and defended the interests of Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat and indirectly the interests of  other persons subjects of both the Egrant and Pilatus Inquiries.

Her repeated refusal to recuse herself and her attitude during hearings have only made matters worse for everybody.

She first cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked inquiry document presented in court by the NGO’s president, Robert Aquilina. She wanted him to disclose his source knowing full well he was bound in confidence. She then deferred sittings for periods as long as four months. She based her third refusal to step down upon facts that came to her from a close but unknown source.

She has, accordingly, unwittingly invited comments about her recent past, before her elevation to the bench, a time when she earned €60,000 a year as a person of trust under the ministry of the said Cardona and also attended Labour Party 2017 election meetings where she was heard ridiculing those NGOs that wanted to hold Mizzi, Schembri and Egrant accountable for their Panama misdeeds by saying that “so what, imbilli, everyone makes mistakes”.

As they say, you spend a lifetime building a reputation and it only takes one day of stupidity for you to undo it all.