It is a sad state of affairs when a critical mass of people in a European Union member state feel compelled to turn to Brussels for help. It is sad when the European Parliament investigates the rule of law, or the lack thereof, in a member state. And it is sad when EU authorities are asked to intervene when requests for action by local authorities repeatedly fall on deaf ears.

They do so when they feel abandoned by the institutions that are meant to safeguard them, but are seen to have failed them so miserably. 

They do so when they feel there is nowhere else to go because they feel their own government is refusing to abide by the rule of law.

And the fact that they are motivated to do so, irrespective of whether they are right to feel that way or not, is a damning incitement on their government of the day.  

The fact that the majority of a population have given the current government’s modus operandi the thumb’s up at the electoral polls should be of little solace to a government, which is responsible for governing not only those who voted for it but also those who voted against it.

No government should be content with a significant portion of its population rising up in protest time and time again against what they perceive to be an utterly corrupt regime. Any government can, of course, batten down the hatches and wait out the passing storm, but a government that ignores people calling for the storming of the government’s very seat of power is simply not fit for purpose.

The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia is not necessarily the cause of the malaise that has gripped this non-compliant portion of the country insisting that things must change. It was yet another symptom of the disease afflicting the country’s governance.

It was a clarion call to those driven to hopelessness by a government that has allowed so many misdeeds to go unpunished.

If the government was abiding by the rule of law, those who opened companies in Panama right after having been first swept to power would have been given no quarter at Castile.

If the government was abiding by the rule of law, reports by the country’s anti-money watchdog that implicated senior people in the government would not have been put out of sight on a shelf and simply left to gather dust.

If the government was abiding by the rule of law the people at the watchdog who drew up those reports would not have been summarily fired, and the head of the watchdog would not have been replaced by an arguably more malleable individual that suspiciously absolved a notorious bank when his predecessor had not done so.

If the government was abiding by the rule of law, police commissioners would not have resigned rather than move to prosecute those in power on the strength of those reports.

If the government was abiding by the rule of law, we would not have protest after protest calling for the heads of the Attorney General and Police Commissioner for dereliction of duty.

Yet this is exactly what we have. In the face of this and much more, people have turned to the EU, not out of treachery but out of desperation. You see, had Malta’s institutions been functioning as they should, there would have been no need to take such matters to Brussels.

There is an old adage, which may have been overused of late: Not only must justice be done, it must also be seen to be done. This applies not only to the courts but also by extension to those institutions that have not only failed the people; they have also been seen to have failed the people by a significant slice of the population.

That slice may not be enough to turn an electoral tide, at least not yet, but it should be enough to concern a government that apparently “listens”. It is, however, hard to listen, let alone hear, with one’s head is buried in the sand.