Economy Minister Silvio Schembri rushed to Facebook last Wednesday to announce to the world that a magistrate had turned down a request for a magisterial inquiry made against him by lawyer Jason Azzopardi.

But, in his haste to celebrate, Schembri probably did not realise that he was shooting his own government in the foot.

His exoneration, so to speak, was clear proof that the system we have in place works at both extremes - if there is enough for magistrates to work on in an inquiry, they accept the requests made; if there isn't, as was the case with Schembri, they don't.

So there is no need to change the way things are. Our magistrates are competent enough to know when there is room for investigation, or when the request for one is unjustified. It's as simple as that.

But the Labour government wants to make it more difficult. And the reason for this is that magisterial inquiries, when they were held, have led to trouble for individuals who occupied top positions in the party and government, and caused political damage to the PL in general.

It was only last Wednesday, incidentally the same day as Schembri's celebration, that former Minister Konrad Mizzi and former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri were charged in court following the findings of a magisterial inquiry into the company known as 17 Black.

These two are already on another list of persons who were accused of criminal wrongdoing in connection with another magisterial inquiry, this time related to the hospitals' deal. With them in the dock, in this case, are former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, former minister Edward Scicluna and former minister Chris Fearne.

Were it not for magisterial inquiries, we would not have arrived at this stage.

So, you see, magisterial inquiries have caused distress to the Labour Party and government, and this is why in the eyes of many the government has formalised its intentions to change the process by tabling a bill in Parliament to effectively make it more difficult.

In spite of the opposition to the bill, which is not only coming from the Nationalist Party, the government has stubbornly ploughed ahead. In spite for calls to at least issue a white paper for the matter to be discussed, the government moved on with its plans. And judging by the way the government is proceeding, it wants to see the law in place as quickly as possible. The discussion in Parliament has been moved forward and will start on Tuesday.

The government - or, perhaps we should say Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard, who have been the only ones to express themselves on the matter publicly, so far - says it is making this move to stop the system from being abused. But, as Schembri's case shows, the safeguards against unjustified requests are already there. As we have already said in other editorials, the "abuse" is in the wrongdoing, not in the call for an investigation.

But it is apparent that there is no step the government will not take to protect its own in its quest to remain in power.

The opposition to the bill has grown since the details of the government's plans were made public, as now the hurdles that need to be overcome have been made known. And they are quite high, obviously intended to discourage anyone from going through with it.

The first is that the initial request has to be made to the police, which is already in itself a tough obstacle to overcome, considering the police track record. It is only after six months that a judge may then be asked to review any police work on the request made, and then decide whether an inquiry should be launched. For one thing, this change is in its own way a vote of no confidence in the magistrates, since once the law is passed they will not be the ones to take the decision to proceed with an inquiry, but they will be handed down the job by a judge.

That the level of proof required for an inquiry to start has been raised so high - in the sense that only evidence that is admissible in court may be presented in the request - makes it even more difficult for any citizen seeking to start a magisterial inquiry. Private citizens do not have the power that the police have to investigate, so gathering any proof will be next to impossible.

The government is trying to sell the changes as a way to strengthen the rule of law in the country, but it is doing the exact opposite. What the government is proposing will only serve to make it harder for the truth to emerge and, by so doing, the government is protecting those who commit wrongdoing.