Prime Minister Robert Abela seems to be haunted by a relentless sense of insecurity. He is selective of the media houses that he accepts to be interviewed by and shies away from hard but legitimate questions of independent media journalists whom he accuses of affronting him personally. He has also failed to accept repeated challenges by Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia for a face-to-face televised leader debate.

Abela has been dodging questions from the independent media ever since his campaign to succeed Joseph Muscat as leader of the Labour Party. He even backed out of an event held by the Chamber of Commerce that was attended by the other contender Chris Fearne, during which questions of interest to businessmen were put forward.

Indeed, Abela focussed his entire campaign on pleasing blinkered Labourites and party faithful who held the key to the party leadership.

He succeeded in winning their support by projecting himself as the candidate of the status quo which best suited their egoistic personal interests.

Now Abela is the country’s fully fledged prime minister which places a moral obligation upon him to act according to his oath of allegiance by

repairing the almost unrepairable reputational damage inflicted upon the country by his predecessor Joseph Muscat – named ‘2019 man of the year in organised crime and corruption’.

Abela should have dissociated himself completely from Muscat and asked the police to investigate him and other corrupt individuals close to him.

Instead Abela chose to appoint Muscat as an economic advisor, which gives one the impression that he is trading favours with him for having appointed him his legal counsel when he was prime minister.

Abela also appears to be obliged towards his scandal-tarnished predecessor because apparently if it had not been for him he would probably not have succeeded in turning the table against Fearne, who was the runaway favourite to become prime minister.

Abela certainly owes a lot to Muscat’s wife who worked assiduously to build support for his candidacy among those with the voting power to elect the new Labour leader.

Abela said that he contested the party leadership because he did not want to make a deal with the devil, but did not mention whether instead he had

entered into some kind of pact with Muscat.

Abela is governing the country under Muscat’s shadow, who has weakened Malta’s key institutions responsible for the proper functioning of democracy which in turn led to a collapse of the rule of law in the country.

Back in December 2018 Muscat pledged to implement all the recommendations adopted by the Venice Commission to strengthen good governance and the rule of law in Malta.

Instead, not only did he ignore almost all recommendations, but he outrightly defied the commission by maintaining his constitutional power as prime minister to appoint members to the bench, and appointed six new members on April 25, 2019, including persons with direct connections to the Labour Party or a party official.

Abela, like Muscat, kept procrastinating on the implementation of the commission’s recommendations and has only just provided the Council of Europe with details of his government’s reform proposals.

Before he did this he had announced that he wanted to implement the recommendation that concerns the appointment of the police commissioner.

Yet, even here Abela has gone against the spirit of the proposal by his insistence on having the final choice of the commissioner as prime minister.

Robert Abela should have dissociated himself completely from Joseph Muscat and asked the police to investigate him- Denis Tanti

Abela has left it up to his cabinet ministers to choose who in their opinion would be most suitable for the position from among the two candidates shortlisted by the Public Service Commission.

Abela also reduced the police commissioner’s current five-year tenure to four against the recommendation of the Venice Commission, and subjected the position holder to a one-year probation period during which he can oust him or her.

Besides, the commissioner will find himself at the whim of the Principal Permanent Secretary and Cabinet Secretary Mario Cutajar, who decides on how much of the 20 per cent project-based allowance and 15 per cent performance bonus he should be paid.

Pieter Omtzigt, the Special Rapporteur for Malta at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has declared himself against a procedure where the police commissioner continues to be appointed by the prime minister.

Recent local experience has shown that where the police commissioner is obedient and submissive to the prime minister, high echelons of the government and the ordinary citizens are treated differently where it comes to investigating crime, collecting evidence and arraigning suspects before the judicial authorities.

Even former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant was highly critical of Abela’s selection procedure for police commissioner to the extent of describing it as nothing but a charade.

The €42,827 salary payable to the police commissioner is a non-motivator when compared to what certain CEOs in the public sector are being paid.

For example, last year the CEO of the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly received a salary of €86,190 together with a performance bonus of €8,188, making up an annual total of €94,378.

At the same time she has been allowed to continue with her private practice as a general medical practitioner, even if in breach of the code of ethics, which is something that the new police commissioner will be precluded from doing.

Denis Tanti Former assistant director in the Ministry for Health.