What with all the talk about the rule of law, or the lack thereof, in this country by the Opposition and its acolytes, one would have thought that this same Opposition would not leave a body like the Permanent Commission Against Corruption in the lurch for months on end.

It is understandable and fully appreciated that the Opposition is still perhaps finding its feet with its new leader and administration, but this issue, in reality, has little to do with the Opposition's internal travails.

The Commission is composed of a chairman and two members, both of whom are appointed by the President of Malta, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister after he has consulted with the Leader of the Opposition. 

This effectively means the Commission has one member from the Opposition side of the political equation. Moreover, that person cannot be a former Member of Parliament, minister or parliamentary secretary. 

That should narrow the choice down a little bit but for some reason, which has not been explained, the unidentified person chosen by the Opposition is still to give the party and answer, two and a half months down the road since the Prime Minister had written to the Opposition, and some eight months since the death of former magistrate Joe Cassar at the beginning of May, which necessitated the replacement.

Given this current delay, it should also be recalled how the same Opposition had cried bloody murder back in 2014 when the Commission had been by the wayside for nearly an entire year. The official reason at the time was that the Commission, set up in 1988, was due for a transformation after Judge Giovanni Bonello had labelled it as ineffective in his report on the reform of the judicial system. He reached that conclusion on the worthy merit that not a single person had ever been arraigned by the police on the basis of the Commission's investigations, despite the fact that the Commission had investigated some 425 cases between 1988 and 2014.

This is now the second time since 2014 that the Commission has been basically dead in the water and left unable to function.

In the meantime, the Permanent Commission Against Corruption has been unable to function for the last eight months - not a good track record for a government and an opposition that have both been embroiled in and have rallied against corruption.

In the meantime the Commission, which is a vital tool in fighting corruption, is now virtually inexistent and merely waiting on the Opposition's word. But while the Opposition, this time around drags its feet, citizens are still being deprived of this vital tool.

As an example, and purely for the sake of argument, assume that a citizen needs to make a formal complaint to the Commissioner of Police over a suspicion of corruption. Again, purely for the sake of argument, imagine that Commissioner withdraws criminal charges against the person in question not because he was legally entitled to do so but because of some other motive. 

Would that citizen then be able to lodge a complaint to the Police Commissioner to have the police to investigate the Police Commissioner over such a serious accusation? The answer is an obvious 'No', and that is where the Permanent Commission Against Corruption comes into action.

Partit Demokratiku has in the meantime offered its services, suggesting it could nominate a person to fill the Opposition's seat o n the Commission but since there is no parliamentary coalition to speak of, especially since the Nationalist Party recently dissolved its uneasy electoral coalition with PD, this too appears to be a non-starter.

The only workable solution is for the Opposition to force an answer it says it needs from its nominee or, short of that, make a new nomination. While the Opposition may be struggling with its own internal issues it must not let the contagion factor spread to areas such as this which affect the country's good governance on the most basic of levels.