In the last 12 months, Prime Minister Robert Abela has had to face three significant scandals which have been coupled with four calls for resignations from within his Cabinet - with four of those calls ending in a different outcome.

From Chris Fearne to Byron Camilleri, with Clint Camilleri and Clayton Bartolo in between, Abela has had to face headaches as some of his ministers find themselves in scandals, sometimes of their own making.

Here's a rundown of how four calls for resignations ended up in four quite different outcomes.

Chris Fearne

When criminal proceedings in relation to the Vitals hospitals deal began and Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne became one of a myriad of individuals charged in connection with it, Fearne announced that he would be stepping down from Cabinet and withdrawing his name from being Malta's next European Commissioner.

Two days prior, Abela told Parliament that Fearne would remain Deputy Prime Minister unless the Vitals inquiry had found anything tangible against him.

"If Dr Fearne is mentioned in the inquiry conclusions but not in the body of the text, then I will continue to defend him to the end and he will stay on as deputy prime minister," Abela had said.

Yet Fearne himself disagreed with the standard that Abela set: Fearne said that despite facing "injustice" he had a duty to "put the people first" which is why he was resigning.

His resignation letter was published on Facebook in full so he could have some control over the narrative.  Abela responded - also publicly - through his own letter, asking Fearne to reconsider his decision.  Reconsider, however, Fearne did not.

He chose to step down from his ministerial posts regardless, leaving Abela with no choice in the matter and also leaving him with a little bit of egg on his face as well - after all, here he was trying to convince a man facing criminal charges to stay on in a top government role; where that same man is disputing that staying on is actually not the right thing to do.

That's how those opposed to the government certainly saw it, and one wonders whether how Abela responded to the Vitals matter as a whole had an impact on his party's electoral performance in the MEP elections a month later.

It also allowed people to draw a distinction: on the one hand, Fearne resigned because he believed that that was the correct thing to do given the significance of his office; on the other hand, Edward Scicluna refused to step down from his post at the head of Malta's Central Bank - and it took until a magistrate ruled that Scicluna should stand trial two months later until Abela said that the former minister should step down.

Scicluna defied Abela and refused to resign, and Abela didn't sack him.  Instead an agreement was reached for Scicluna to be suspended on half-pay. Fearne, meanwhile, remains a PL MP on the backbenches today. 

Clayton Bartolo

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo found himself embroiled in a political scandal of his own towards the end of last year after parliament's Standards Commissioner found that he and Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri had abused their power by making Bartolo's wife - who was his girlfriend at the time - a ministerial consultant.

The investigation found that Amanda Muscat, who was Bartolo's personal secretary at the time, was transferred to the Gozo Ministry and engaged as a consultant with a €68,000 annual salary - despite not having any actual qualifications or experience to warrant her having that position.

Furthermore, the Standards Commissioner found that Muscat never actually worked as a consultant once she was given the role - instead she continued to work as Bartolo's personal secretary.

Bartolo offered up a conditional apology for the breach, but said that calls for his resignation were based on "political spin".  Abela meanwhile backed the embattled minister, highlighting that the circumstances did not warrant him stepping down and that the whole issue revolved around a €16,000 discrepancy in pay.

But, little more than a week later a new scandal emerged - and Abela then moved to take action.

Bartolo was summoned by the Prime Minister and forced to resign after an FIAU investigation into a suspected kickback scheme involving the minister's wife emerged. It was a decision taken by a Prime Minister knowing that he could not defend a deeply embattled minister any longer, lest he be dragged down with him.

In advising Bartolo where the door was, Abela was clear: the latest case was different to the Standards Commissioner's investigation.

That's a distinction drawn by design: it meant that Abela could continue to protect the other minister named in the Standards Commissioner's report.

Clint Camilleri

Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri has long been recognised as one of Abela's greatest allies. He has a ministerial portfolio - Gozo and planning - to match that.

He too was mentioned in the Standards Commissioner's report concerning Amanda Muscat's fake consultancy job - after all, it was his ministry which employed Bartolo's partner in the role.

Yet most of the attention fell onto Bartolo, allowing Camilleri to fly largely under the radar.  Abela still insisted that he would not remove Camilleri, and even when the matter was discussed by Parliament's Standards Committee the Gozo Minister got away with a lesser punishment.

This is because while both Camilleri and Bartolo were admonished by the committee, Bartolo had to make a formal apology to Parliament for the ethics breach.

Despite the Opposition saying that Camilleri was doubly guilty - once for "defrauding the public" and another for "a cover-up" - the matter eventually slipped out of the headlines, and Camilleri retained his post.

Byron Camilleri

Everybody was blindsided when on a Sunday morning Byron Camilleri announced that he had offered his resignation as Home Affairs Minister due to a theft from an Armed Forces of Malta facility.

As the day progressed it emerged that 226kg of cannabis resin - no small amount - had been stolen from under army noses inside an AFM compound as the drugs were being held there as a result of industrial action elsewhere.

It also emerged that Abela had refused Camilleri's resignation offer, saying he saw no reason why the minister should step down, particularly as he had not been involved in the decision to have the drugs placed where they were.

Abela's decision to defend Camilleri perhaps shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. The Home Affairs Minister has been the focal point of resignation calls based on other scandals, such as that pertaining to Identita over fraudulent ID cards and the Ombudsman's report on the situation in prison a few years back - but Abela has consistently defended him.

This is the first time, though, that Camilleri actually offered to resign, despite the magnitude of previous scandals. Perhaps his decision to tender his resignation was to place the onus on Abela and remove some of the political pressure off of his own shoulders.

If that was part of the intention, he succeeded. Abela's decision became the focal point, and he was lambasted by the Opposition.

Abela's reaction to the scandal however is quite on par with how he has acted in handling other ministerial controversies: he made a public, concerted effort to try and get Fearne to reconsider his resignation; he initially steadfastly refused to call for Clayton Bartolo's resignation - only telling Bartolo to step down when a new scandal emerged; and Clint Camilleri's resignation wasn't even a matter up for discussion.

Instead, Abela has appointed an administrative inquiry into drugs heist, while the Armed Forces of Malta Brigadier remains suspended - having been suspended by Camilleri himself when he made his offer to resign. The inquiry has been given until 14 March to conclude its work.

Meanwhile, the whole of Cabinet was also called into action as it issued a unanimous vote of confidence in Camilleri.  That strengthens Camilleri and the Prime Minister - but it will create more pertinent questions should the inquiry find that the Minister has some blame to shoulder in this debacle, as then it would be the whole government which is on the hook.