Finally, Robert Abela made the right decision. The U-turn may not have been voluntary, it came late and caused so much pain, especially to Jean Paul Sofia’s family.

Just five days after parliament ignored logic and public opinion and voted against a public inquiry into the building collapse that killed Sofia, the prime minister had a change of heart. Even though blatantly evident that his decision was motivated by convenience rather than conviction, the prime minister keeps insulting the people’s intelligence.

Abela continuously rejected the demand for a public inquiry on grounds that it is the magisterial inquiry that really matters.

Yet, the status quo that prevailed last week, when 40 Labour MPs rejected the persistent calls for a public inquiry, remained unchanged on Monday when Abela moved – or was forced – to pick up the pieces of the mess he created over the past months.

Of course, it is not only him that must answer for his political cardinal sin in adopting such a stubborn stance.

Each and every one of his parliamentary colleagues who preferred to follow their leader rather than their conscience and who spoke one way in private but behaved differently in public will, no doubt, be judged by their constituents.

Labour supporters, those who are not blinkered, at least, realise the damage Abela’s obstinacy caused to their party.

The government is empowered by law to order a public inquiry and that is not being questioned.

Indeed, the request by so many quarters, notably the Sofia family and the Nationalist Party, which has now been proven correct in its arguments by none other than the prime minister himself, could be made precisely because of the Inquiries Act provisions.

However, though not necessarily giving rise to a legal issue, the way a formal decision by MPs was overturned at the prime minister’s behest is, at best, politically embarrassing.

The chronology of events proves that Monday’s decision was unplanned because, surely, if that were the case there would have not been need for a controversial parliamentary vote that provoked the wrath of a wide section of society, including Labour sympathisers.

“We live in a country where the rule of law prevails and we are all subject to that,” the prime minister said when announcing the setting up of the public inquiry.

Surely, the rule of law does not contemplate having a prime minister who – notwithstanding his many declarations of having relinquished powers he enjoyed – still expects to make demands to institutions.

He has no problem telling the inquiry magistrate he thinks she is sleeping on the job or urging the chief justice to wake her up.

Neither does he have any qualms to let it be known publicly that he expects the attorney general to allow publication of the magisterial inquiry once completed.

As Abela himself said on Monday, timely justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done and that justice delayed is justice denied.

But it was Abela himself who halted justice by objecting to the public inquiry in the first place for his own inexplicable reasons.

In a country where the rule of law truly prevails and where a healthy democracy is thriving, the prime minister and his government would have a lot to answer for.

Abela increasingly appears to be out of his depth.