Parliament is the centre of Malta's democracy.  It's the centre of power; where all the decisions are made, and where the most important debates in the country are held.

It's for that reason that people expect the highest standards of those who are elected to represent them in Parliament. By this we refer to high standards of seriousness and professionalism and intelligent discussion.

Unfortunately, what transpired in Parliament on Monday and Tuesday especially fell far short of that.

The drama at the start of the week concerned the theft of 226kg of cannabis from army grounds, and the Prime Minister's subsequent rejection of the resignation of Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.

First, the Nationalist Party through leader Bernard Grech filed a motion for an urgent parliamentary debate on the matter.  This was refused by Speaker Anglu Farrugia, and then Prime Minister Robert Abela stood up to give a ministerial statement on the case.

Except, he never actually managed to do so.  A whole parliamentary sitting was punctuated by barrages of insults, insinuations, and allegations thrown across both sides of the House, while the Prime Minister was consistently interrupted by members of the Opposition.

At times, what is meant to be the cradle of Maltese democracy descending into a mosh pit of name calling.

PN MP Karol Aquilina accused the government of being "associated with criminals" and the Prime Minister replied by chiding Aquilina for apparently never having any clients as a lawyer.  PN MP Alex Borg said Abela had called him a "clown" (pulcinell), and also rose to say that he was tired of PL exponents calling him "Mr Facebook."

These are things that you'd sooner expect in a playground than in Parliament's chambers. It's little wonder that more and more people are losing faith in mainstream politics when this is how it plays out.

The real irony is that the Prime Minister was consistently interrupted by the PN, when it was the PN's leader Bernard Grech himself who on Sunday asked for Parliament to be given an explanation on the matter and for the opposition to have the opportunity to ask questions.

"We are going to be requesting that tomorrow, at the earliest occasion, a parliamentary session is held during which an explanation about the case is given and where the Opposition will have the opportunity to ask questions and request clarifications from the Prime Minister about what was revealed this morning," Grech wrote on Sunday.

This is exactly what a ministerial statement is: a statement is given, any MP can ask follow-up questions, and the same person who gave the statement then answers.

Yet it was the PN MPs themselves who did not allow the Prime Minister to give such a statement, with Monday's parliamentary sitting suspended five times, leaving the Speaker lamenting "we're not going to accomplish anything today."

Tuesday's behaviour was only marginally better, with the Prime Minister finally managing to get through his ministerial statement, again, despite several attempts at interruptions.

It should be said that by that point, arrests in the case had already been made, and the ministerial statement that was given in actual fact offered little in terms of new information about the case.  There should be a responsibility for more transparency in this regard - interruptions or not.

The ultimate crux however is that these two sessions were an example of how Parliament should not play out.