Iceland’s parliament has voted to press charges of negligence against former PM Geir Haarde for his role in the post Lehman debacle which left 320,000 Icelanders owing billions worldwide.

The law invoked was one introduced in 1905. Haarde will be the first Icelandic leader to be tried by a special Constitutional Court in the first concrete step to hold politicians and regulators responsible for the economy’s meltdown.

While Haarde did not submit himself to criminal proceedings, it is certainly a lesson which we ought to learn. While we had the voluntary resignation by Chris Said and the forced ouster of John Dalli, very few politicians are willing to take responsibility for their (in)actions, or the circumstances they find themselves in.

To put matters into context, Said is facing criminal charges of perjury. We will not go into the merits as that is for the courts to decide. But Mr Said mulled over his options and came to the conclusion that he had to resign because his position was untenable in the given circumstances. He showed what accountability and responsibility towards government, and the people of Malta should be all about.

Dalli’s case was different. He was smeared in a fake report commission by a local ‘private investigator’ and implicated in handing out preferential orders. He was eventually exculpated, but he too gave up his cabinet seat.

All the while, we have seen various incidents which would have immediately demanded the resignation of ministers and others, had we been living anywhere north of Rome. But as it stands, we live in Malta and whether we admit it or not, we have a laissez-faire attitude which is prevalent across all sectors of society and our administration.

We saw issues where ministers accepted flights on private jets, others which did not keep tabs on their own staff which saw Malta lose EU finding, mayors have admitted taking kickbacks to the police… the list goes on.

Malta badly needs a change of attitude when it comes to being accountable. It would be wrong to say that this attitude does not also exist in the private sector; it does. But the private sector concentrates on making money and if any (in)actions by a person cause a loss of profit, productivity or reputation, that person is either asked to go, or they do so themselves.

This newspaper is not calling for resignations en masse every time there is a hiccup or a storm in a teacup – the mayor and his daughter using the council laptop to use Facebook is an issue that springs to mind – but people need to be accountable for their actions.

People are held accountable by the rule of law. But there are people and there are people. Our laws allow for the prosecution of citizens if they are in breach of any legislation – that is the ultimate in being held accountable. But what about other people in high posts who merely brush things under the carpet whenever a scandal breaks? Are they held accountable? More often than not, they are not held accountable. Thankfully, we do have politicians who are willing to resign – and for the right reasons. But perhaps one of the major reasons why we do not have a culture of resignation when it is warranted is simply because there are not enough people of the right caliber to replace those who have made way. In that way, people who should have resigned can rest on the fact that they are ‘safe’ because no one can really fill their shoes. Shame.