There was a time where people were eager to find out which kind hearted souls had been included in that year’s Republic Day honours list.

That time is long gone. The once respectful ceremony has degenerated into a charade and, unless reformed, it should be scrapped.

On 13 December, “the President of Malta, on behalf of the Government and people of Malta, pays public tribute to a number of Maltese citizens who distinguish themselves in different fields of endeavour.”

But many feel that Gieh ir-Repubblika has become nothing more than an exercise for the government of the day to award people for services rendered to the party in power.

This happens every year but let us for now take this week’s ceremony as an example.

Wednesday’s ceremony saw at least ten people who are closely linked with the Labour Party receive awards. These included former ministers and MPs, former candidates, activists and media personalities close to the PL. A few days after there was harsh criticism after the PM’s wife Michelle Muscat was bestowed with the Voluntary Person of the Year Award, more care should have been taken to avoid a similar backlash on Republic Day.

But this was not the case at all.

Partit Demokratiku MP Godfrey Farrugia raised a stink when he learnt that President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca had pinned the medal of Officer of the Order of Merit to the chest of his former Parliamentary colleague, Joe Debono Grech.

Joe Debono Grech had been involved in a loud altercation with Farrugia’s partner, Marlene Farrugia, when he had infamously shouted at her ‘nigi ghalik u nifqghek.”

Godfrey Farrugia argued that someone who was guilty of passing such a sexist remark, in Parliament no less, was unworthy of receiving the Republic Day award and the President should have never have signed off on the Prime Minister’s recommendation.

No amount of good deeds can erase such vile and sexist comments, was the gist of Farrugia’s Facebook post.

A few weeks back there were calls, including from this newspaper, for the revocation of the award given in 2015 to former GWU boss Tony Zarb. This happened when Zarb compared women protesting for justice outside the Prime Minister’s office to Strait Street prostitutes.

So we have one case where someone who passed sexist remarks in Parliament was recognized for his political service while another person who compared activists to whores gets to keep his medal.

There were, of course, other occasions where the country’s highest honour was ridiculed and dragged down in the mud. Everyone remembers how a previous Nationalist administration had bestowed the honour onto former Libyan and Tunisian dictators Muammar Ghaddafi and Ben Ali.

Ghaddafi had already been awarded by a Labour government in the 1970s, along with North Korean supreme leader Kim il-Sung.

Over the years many awards were given to deserving individuals or groups of people. These include the Armed Forces of Malta’s air and maritime squadrons, who have saved countless lives, often putting themselves in great danger in the process.  Several philanthropists and artists who brought honours to Malta and people who genuinely made the country proud were also given the award.

But unfortunately, some very dubious choices made over the years, as well as the way in which political parties tend to use the state honours to thank their own has significantly eroded the prestige that the event once had.

The truth is that a system where one has to be nominated to be eligible, and that nomination then has to go to the Prime Minister’s desk, before reaching the President, greatly lessens the chances for ordinary citizens who quietly and humbly work to make the country a better place to be duly recognized and thanked by the state.

The system in its current form is unfair and, unless reformed, it should be done away with.