Prime Minister Robert Abela said that it will be his own discretion, and not that of any magistrate or inquiry, on whether to accept any resignations from government officials and ministers.

Abela was speaking to journalists and was asked about a MaltaToday report from Thursday night which suggested that Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne had shocked a Labour Party parliamentary group meeting by saying that he was ready to step down if he was mentioned in the Vitals Global Healthcare magisterial inquiry.

“The political judgement on whether or not I accept the resignation of a minister is down to me. No magistrate will tell me whether I should accept a resignation or not,” Abela said.

He continued that he had established the criteria for whether to take action or not, and said that he would not rely on the magistrate’s final conclusion but more so on the whole proces verbal which would lay bare whether the person in question has displayed any criminal shortcomings.

Abela implied that he would not accept the resignation of public officials “whose only sin has been that they were loyal servants to the State under both a PN and a PL administration.”

He noted that, according to what he had heard “through the grapevine”, such officials may be charged in connection with the inquiry and suggested that this was being done to send a message telling them not to work towards the implementation of the electoral manifesto.

“I will always exercise my discretion in favour of all those who are working honestly and with integrity for the implementation of the electoral manifesto for the country,” Abela said.

The inquiry into the now court-annulled hospitals deal, which was concluded last week, has been the story of the hour, with suggestions that the former Labour triumvirate of power Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, and Konrad Mizzi are among those set to be charged in connection with it.

However, Abela has been critical of the inquiry’s timing, lambasting inquiring magistrate Gabriella Vella and suggesting that she had politicised the inquiry by timing its conclusion purposely to coincide with the opening of the nomination period for the upcoming MEP elections.

He has placed the blame for the timing on an un-named political “establishment” and did so again on Friday, saying: “What is certain is that I will not let the establishment destabilise this country.”

Asked who exactly this ‘establishment’ is, Abela didn’t specify but said that the group “evidently controls the Nationalist Party” and implied that the magisterial inquiry’s report itself would “give clearer indications of how the establishment works.”

“The establishment, through its tentacles, has been commenting on Facebook for months on the inquiry’s contents and indicating when it will be published,” Abela said, likely a reference to former PN MP and the lawyer for Repubblika – which had demanded the inquiry in the first place – Jason Azzopardi.