About a decade and a half ago, I sat for a credit in philosophy of law. In one of the first, if not the first, lectures, I remember our lecturer looking intently at us and telling us about the Ring of Gyges.

Mentioned by the philosopher Plato in book two of his Republic, the Ring of Gyges is a ring that allows its wearer to be invisible. The question posed to us students was: Would a reasonable, intelligent person who didn’t need to worry about the negative consequences of committing an injustice still act justly?

Almost 20 years later, I think of this question every other week and wonder how many would still choose to be good if they weren’t forced to be answerable for their actions.

You see, the thing about accountability is that it’s not fun.

That’s why civilised countries traditionally tried to vote for the best, most upright citizens among them to lead them and not the village idiot; the bigger the boots you wear, the more responsibility you need to carry. You would think this would be an essential requisite for being a minister but, here in sunny Malta, we seem to interpret concepts like justice and culpability very loosely.

At the end of last week, 200kg of cannabis resin were stolen from a container stored on a property belonging to the Armed Forces of Malta. The drugs were being held in Safi in an ongoing court inquiry.

As we know, this is not the first time evidence has disappeared during an ongoing court inquiry. However, at least this time, the minister of home affairs offered his resignation to the prime minister as anyone with a moral leg to stand on should and would have.

We play ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’ with the donkey rarely being a person in a position of power and responsibility- Anna Marie Galea

However, to the surprise of no one except for a lone sheep living in Nepal, the prime minister defended his cabinet member and noted that the minister had no say in how the container was held, nor did he have any say on the fact that the drugs were not destroyed and subsequently stolen.

Time and time again, we have seen this happen in this country. Something terrible occurs that would see ministers in other countries grovelling and clawing at their faces in their efforts to apologise for a misdeed that happened on their watch, and here, we play ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’ with the donkey rarely being a person in a position of power and responsibility.

What’s the point of appointing ministers if they carry no liability when serious things happen on their watch? Did we really need former prime minister Alfred Sant to sit down and define the role of duty a politician is meant to have? Is this really what it’s come to?

Every day, the national message sent out is one of impunity and it’s become so bad that no one expects any differently. Who needs Gyges’ Ring and invisibility when they can just move to a country that sold its moral compass for 30 pieces of silver decades ago? Here, the only obligation people feel is to themselves.

We are hollowing important, ethical bastions of their meaning because we don’t understand the long-term implications of doing so. I hope we don’t have the audacity to act surprised when nothing is left but utter chaos.