It truly beggars belief that members of government have appealed against the initiation of a new magisterial inquiry, lodged by the Opposition leader, to investigate whether money laundering laws were broken when what were once secret Panama companies had been opened by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and Minister Konrad Mizzi.

The appeal is incredulous for more reasons than one. Firstly, the appeal directly contradicts an earlier Department of Information press release stating that the members of government listed in the case will fully cooperate with such an investigation, only for all seven people named in the investigation, government members included, to turn around and attempt to stop the inquiry dead in its tracks.

Here, of course, we are only pointing fingers at three of the people that should be investigated: Mizzi, Schembri and the Prime Minister. The other four – Schembri’s alleged co-conspirators Malcolm Scerri and Adrian Hillman, and financial architects Brian Tonna and Karl Cini – are private citizens who should not be held to the same public scrutiny as those forming part of the government.

But as for the actions of the three members of government, one is left either scratching one’s head in disbelief, or assuming the worst.

All those involved have claimed innocence, and most have filed court cases against this newspaper over its reportage. And as such, they should all be quite happy with any investigation that will, given their claims of innocence, clear their names of criminality once and for all.

The government insists that Wednesday’s magisterial decision was not to launch a criminal investigation per se but, rather, an in genere inquiry to determine if there is enough proof for a criminal case. But let’s not split hairs, if there had been nothing in the most recent court application filed by the Opposition leader, the magistrate would have thrown out the application without any further ado. But he did not.

Whichever way one looks at the matter, the government should embrace the court action all the same instead of making hollow statements to the effect that the Opposition leader is attempting to derail other parallel investigations into similar and related, yet different, subject matter.

With its attitude, the government has shown itself to be on the defensive when in actual fact it should be wholeheartedly welcoming any such investigation, if those involved are as guiltless as they say they are. After all, when it came to the Egrant-Pilatus Bank allegations, the Prime Minister himself had requested a magisterial inquiry.

These multiple accusations of financial misconduct by those in power have been festering under the nation’s skin for far too long and they hang like a shadow over this government. The result is that large swathes of the population, those who did not vote for this government and even many of those who had, are openly or secretly calling into question every deal the government strikes.

No government should be able to afford that and no government should allow itself to be regarded in such a negative light by any significant portion of its population, irrespective of any electoral result no matter how favourable.

Now this newspaper may be accused of flogging a dead horse, we have been accused of worse, but the fact of the matter is that, as promised in the past, we will not let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to the matter of the revelations that came about as a result of the massive Panama Papers leak.

And this latest appeal, which is a clear cut case of attempting to halt an inquiry that should supposedly only prove the innocence of the accused is not only a smack in the face of the rule of law, it also smacks of an unclean conscience.

After all, if this is a case of clear consciences, the question of whether to lodge an appeal should not have even come up. Justice should have been left to run its course unimpeded, and there should have been no debate at all of whether to appeal the ruling or not.