The way in which the government has brushed off calls for an inquiry into the way in which a group of irregular migrants on the high seas were split up, like so many heads of cattle, between the Libyan and Maltese forces leaves an awful lot to be desired.

And when the country’s head of government brushes off such a serious precedent and responds to a call for an inquiry by simply stating that established rules and procedures had been followed in an unprecedented situation, several questions begin to surface.

The question that begs first and foremost is: what exactly are the established rules, procedures and protocol being referred to? Simply saying they were followed without providing any verification that they actually were followed, and without a definition of what those rules are, is a far from satisfactory explanation.

If, as the Prime Minister said, there is no problem in the way in which the migrants were divided up since the established rules and procedures were followed, the same thing may recur time and time again. And if there are such rules and procedures, what is to stop Malta from engaging in the push backs that Italy has been practicing for some time now?

It must also be independently established beyond any doubt that the separation of the group was, as is being claimed, completely voluntary.

One migrant brought to Malta claims he was involuntarily separated from his pregnant wife during the operation. If it is independently verified that the woman is with child in Libya, and that she had been on the boat, it seems highly unlikely that the spouses would have agreed to be separated, irrespective of the destination in question.

If the migrants were rescued from Malta’s search and rescue region, they were Malta’s responsibility, not Libya’s. That must also be firmly established.

This latest incident threatens to place the country in league with Italy, which, although responsible for having stemmed the flow of migrants to its shores – and to Malta as well in the process – is on a very slippery moral slope with its practice of pushing migrant boats back to Libyan shores.

Malta must not become party to such actions, either under its own steam or by acting in tandem with Libya or Italy. If it does, it will lose any stake it has claimed for any sort of moral high ground on the issue of the migration phenomenon, and its arguments for burden sharing will be frowned upon more than usual by its European counterparts.

At risk of digressing, one would not be hard pressed to observe that if we can have a government-ordered inquiry into how certain information about alleged financial maladministration made its way from the Office of the President to members of the media, an inquiry on an act that threatens the country’s humanitarian standing is perfectly warranted.

But, then again, an inquiry into the alleged financial maladministration has not been ordered – perhaps that particular witch-hunt is not one upon which the government would like to embark.

Malta has been hauled over the coals by a variety of humanitarian organisations this week and it simply must respond, if it has a leg to stand on.

All Maltese with a conscience will want answers – that is beyond any shadow of doubt. Others, sadly, would probably be happier with a call for an inquiry into why the entire group was not sent back to Libya. The government must lead by example here, lest it is to risk being pigeonholed into the latter, and not the former, category.

Now to Libya, Malta’s dubious partner last Sunday.

A migrant returned to Libya is a migrant who has not been afforded his or her human right to seek asylum. Over and above that, a country that sends any migrant back to Libya, as Malta did this weekend, is engaging in a practice that undoubtedly falls foul of human rights and possibly even the principle of non-refoulement, given Libya’s sketchy human rights record and the alarming reports of treatment meted out to migrants in Malta’s southern neighbour.

Those asylum seekers who were returned to Libya have a legitimate international legal and humanitarian right to apply for asylum, which cannot be done in Libya. Sending people back to a country such as Libya that has no human rights to speak of, and denying them the right to apply for asylum, is nothing short of criminal.

Any forced return of migrants to Libya, which is not their country of origin nor a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, needs to be completely ruled out. If the authorities are being accused of this, it simply must respond.

If, after all, the rules and procedures were all followed to the letter, an independent inquiry into Sunday’s actions would do no harm. All it would do would be to confirm the fact that the country has not fallen short of its humanitarian obligations.