When a top public official who has been facing calls to step down for years suddenly hands in his resignation, one rightfully expects to know what the reason behind the resignation is.

Attorney General Peter Grech handed in his resignation on Saturday, effective from 9 September, but the press release did not even come from his office. Instead, the Department of Information sent out a short press release from the Office of the President which simply said that Dr George Vella had accepted Grech’s resignation.

No reason for the decision was given, not even the usual ‘personal reasons’ justification.

Now, we are not saying that Grech resigned because of something untoward – he could well have decided to finally call it a day. After all, he has served in the role for the past ten years. Or it could have been a decision based on health reasons (we truly hope this is not the case).

But perhaps he resigned because he cannot take the pressure from high up any longer, or because he feels that he cannot operate in a truly autonomous way, as should be the case.

The fact remains that Grech, along with top Labour politicians and former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, had been facing calls to step down for many months.

Civil society groups organised protests calling for his head to roll and called him incompetent and a “government puppet.”

The Opposition had also made several calls for Grech to resign, citing his apparent inaction over several major government scandals. The Opposition has claimed that Grech has often acted more like the Prime Minister’s personal lawyer than act in accordance with the constitutional role he holds.

Grech has faced criticism over police inaction against senior politicians who were embroiled in some of the most serious scandals this country has ever seen. He was criticised over the state’s lack of action when FIAU reports highlighting money laundering suspicious were ignored.

While the police have their fair share of the blame over the lack of investigations, the Attorney General, up until a few months ago, was not only the government’s legal advisor but also the state prosecutor.

Most recently, there were calls for Grech’s sacking after a memo he had sent to investigators, urging caution in the investigation the Panama Papers scandal, emerged.

Grech was also recently found to have breached the Opposition Leader’s fundamental rights when he refused to publish the Egrant report.

Adrian Delia and civil society groups are right in calling on the government to publish Grech’s resignation letter. Grech cannot just disappear into the shadows without the country knowing the reason behind his resignation. Like we said earlier, there might be a totally innocuous reason behind his decision to step down, but the fact remains that a vague note by the Office of the President will only help create more doubt and speculation.

Like other resignations before this one, Grech’s needs to be transparent.