The Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life was born and bred under a Labour government or, rather, the Muscat administration. This distinction is being made because it is becoming clearer Robert Abela is not happy with it and does not have any qualms about neutralising it.

The first concrete move to set up the office goes back to mid-2014, when the government and the opposition submitted a joint draft law in parliament. The gestation period was rather long and the law eventually came into force at the end of October 2018.

The Labour parliamentary group had even agreed with the then opposition leader’s proposal to nominate George Hyzler, a former Nationalist junior minister, as Malta’s first standards commissioner. The appointment, the Labour government had declared, demonstrated its determination to improve governance and transparency in the country.

The political turmoil that erupted a few months later would prove otherwise but that is another issue. In so far as the standards commissioner goes, the prospects looked good.

Sadly, that was not to be. When the standards commissioner settled in his new office and began investigating complaints, serious ‘misbehaviour’ started to surface. The likes of Glenn Bedingfield, Edward Zammit Lewis and Anġlu Farrugia, the parliamentary speaker, to boot, unashamedly did their utmost to stifle Hyzler’s efforts to raise the bar.

It is likely that they had Abela’s blessing. Given the latest developments, one would be justified in fearing the prime minister thinks he can save himself embarrassment caused by erring colleagues by leaving the office of the standards commissioner in suspended animation.

Or, perhaps, he wants to use this as a bargaining chip when nominating a new ombudsman (the incumbent’s term of office expired more than a year ago) or when the time comes to have a new president, in 2024.

It is almost reminiscent of the early 1970s, when Dom Mintoff left the constitutional court unconstituted to put pressure on the Nationalist opposition to agree to certain changes in the constitution.

There can be very little doubt Hyzler had become an albatross around the government’s neck and Abela wanted to find a ‘clean’ solution.

So he nominated him to sit on the European Court of Auditors, cutting his five-year term of office by a year.

Hyzler has already taken up his new post in Luxembourg, so Abela can take it easy, procrastinate and prolong talks with the opposition on a nominee acceptable to both sides.

Hyzler must have been smelling a rat when he publicly declared it would be a grave mistake to delay appointing a successor as there was a lot of work to do. But that is exactly what Abela appears to want to achieve: stall the standards commissioner’s work as his administration has been doing for some time now, even shunning the official launch of new proposals to improve standards in public life.

The proposals were launched by the standards commissioner in conjunction with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Commission.

These have now been compiled in a report that has just been submitted to the government.

Sensitive issues are listed, like use of information, dealing with lobbyists, conflict of interest, accepting gifts and revolving doors.

The bottom line is raising standards in public life and stressing integrity. Abela cannot continue dragging things out as Rome burns.