There’s something to be said about how we build trust and, in turn, see the world. Children raised by parents who always emphasise the importance of telling the truth, and live that ethos themselves, tend to go out into the world and do the same. We all have people like that in our life, people we would implicitly trust no matter what story they spin us.

We base that belief on all our prior experiences with them, each experience a building block in the tower of our perception. But what happens when we spot a crack in that tower? What happens when there’s a block that doesn’t sit quite right with the others? The integrity of the whole tower is compromised. Now, all of a sudden, we are questioning all the blocks. Who was it that said trust is like a glass that, once broken, will never be the same again? They were right.

This week, the death of a prosecutor at the attorney general’s office was announced. The diligent lawyer in question was working on several of the very high-profile cases that have been clogging up our news streams for years.

Following an autopsy, it was determined that he died of heart failure, however, people’s reactions to the awful news in the 24 hours it took for the results to come out were truly interesting to me.

As I scrolled through comment after comment on social media soon after the news broke, it became glaringly obvious that, regardless of the autopsy findings, there would be a lot of people who simply wouldn’t believe anything that the police or the government representatives had to say.

There appears to be simply no trust in our institutions functioning the way they are meant to. And, well, why would there be?

I am endlessly sad for this country. For the missed opportunities, for the greed, for the very fact that the belief that justice will be served no longer exists- Anna Marie Galea

Over the past 10 years, we have seen a steady parade of scandals, one more grotesque than the one before it. People have been murdered, our country has been repeatedly raped by greedy, unbridled development and, when it’s not being raped, it’s being sold off bit by bit in shady deals that we are only just now seeing the tip of.

Almost daily, we hear of new allegations that the police should be investigating. Almost daily, we learn about dodgy deals that would put people in other civilised countries behind bars for life. Whenever something is eventually taken to court, the process takes so long that,  by the time a judgment is handed down, years and years have passed and some of the people taking part in the proceedings have either died or moved on completely with their lives. Is it any wonder that so many are showing so little faith in a system so obviously broken?

I am endlessly sad for this country. For the missed opportunities, for the greed, for the very fact that the belief that justice will be served no longer exists. How can a country function when its people don’t trust its gatekeepers to tell them the truth? How are you meant to feel at home in a space where instability, turmoil and ugliness reign supreme and you are constantly being gaslighted by your politicians? I no longer recognise this Malta; this is not the Malta any of us should want.