Prime Minister Robert Abela has put his foot in it – again, we’d like to add.

Apparently it was not enough for him to have highlighted Malta as an unsafe country with his comment about his fears to let his daughter walk on her own in Valletta, a remark that terrorised families with young children, threw bad light on the Home Affairs Minister and the police, and caused damage to the tourism industry.

Neither was he satisfied that he had openly criticised the judiciary by questioning their sentencing policies and saying that their judgments were demoralising the police force.

This time, in his Sunday sermon delivered before a crowd of applauding supporters, he admitted to having had a conversation with a magistrate on the running of the courts. He said that this magistrate had told him that when stiff punishments are given, the chances are that they are reduced on appeal.

No other details were given. We do not know if this magistrate is still active. We do not know if this had been a chance social meeting, or whether it had been pre-arranged. We do now know whether it was the prime minister who brought the subject up, or whether the magistrate was venting frustration that the magistrates’ work is at times rendered futile in the superior courts. We do not know whether a specific case was mentioned.

What we do know is that the prime minister should never have had such a conversation, pre-arranged or otherwise. This goes against basic ethical principles and the practice that there should be a solid, distinct separation between the government, which is the executive arm of our democracy, and the judiciary, which oversees laws.

That the prime minister had such an exchange, and was so candid about it when he admitted it happened in public, exposes the level of arrogance that this administration has reached. The “anything goes” mentality has reached a new height. The Prime Minister should be setting the example, but what he has done is not an example that should be followed.

The Nationalist Party demanded that Abela withdraw his “dangerous” statements, and apologise for what he did. Such an “irresponsible” statement by the PM should have been immediately shot down by the PN, on the Sunday it was said, not the Wednesday after.  The delay in the PN’s criticism reduced the extent of the “danger” the PN said it created. That the PN took three days to issue such a statement exposes an Opposition that is not on the ball. But that’s another issue.

Others were sharper, with ADPD, NGO Repubblika and independent candidate Arnold Cassola highlighting the PM’s sheer brazenness, calling upon the President to convene an urgent meeting of the Commission for the Administration of Justice for action to be taken against the PM and the magistrate, describing it as an affront tom judicial independence, and requesting the “future” Standards Commissioner to investigate.

For its part, the Chamber of Advocates also said Monday that the contact between the Prime Minister and the magistrate went against the code of ethics that members of the judiciary have to follow. Such meetings, if ever there was a need for them, should only be held with the permission of the Chief Justice, a proviso that in this case was not followed.

After such an admission by the PM, it is pertinent to ask whether this was the only time that Robert Abela has had such a conversation with a magistrate, or a judge, for that matter. Were there more occasions? Was it pre-arranged? Did the Chief Justice know about other such meetings? What subjects were discussed? Was it only a general overview, or was there something more specific on the table?

Such a statement, coupled with others that Abela has made in the past days on the workings of judges and magistrates, also leads to questions as to whether the executive is attempting to pressure on the judiciary to deal with cases in the way the government wants them to, rather than base their judgment on the laws of the land and, most of all, their impartiality.

It is also relevant to ask whether the Prime Minister’s arm reaches into other institutions that are supposedly independent of the government. Do these institutions wait for directions before taking action? Do they also have meetings – by chance or pre-arranged – with the Prime Minister to discuss their operations?

It does not help to give peace of mind that some of these institutions have been under fire because their performance in the past years was not appropriate, to say the least.