Holding a ministerial office involves challenges and duties that do not exist in the private sector.
It is also incumbent on ministers to know in what circumstances they should offer to resign. When they do not then do so, it should be difficult, but not impossible, for a prime minister to remove a minister when confidence in his or her ability to fulfil their functions has been lost.
But when a minister does offer a resignation, the prime minister is duty-bound to accept that resignation when facts and circumstances constitutionally warrant it, despite any trust in him reaffirmed by the Cabinet or any good work that the minister might have accomplished. Yet this did not happen in Minister Byron Camilleri's voluntary and spontaneous resignation.
Prior to Byron Camilleri's offer to resign and the subsequent Prime Minister's refusal to accept it, we have had more than one instance where both Robert Abela and former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and their ministers have played havoc with the constitutional duty to resign when circumstances clearly warrant it.
In November 2019, Joseph Muscat's chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and the country's tourism minister, Konrad Mizzi, resigned in an escalation of the political turmoil surrounding the investigation into the murder of the prominent anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Both resignations were promptly and unconditionally accepted, despite Mizzi retaining his seat as a PL MP in parliament.
In contrast, in June 2020, Konrad Mizzi turned down Prime Minister Robert Abela's request for him to resign from the Labour Party parliamentary group. Not only that, but the need was felt to convene a PL executive meeting to discuss Mizzi's removal. Indeed, Konrad Mizzi was soon after expelled from the Labour Party's Parliamentary Group following a meeting that was held between the PL Parliamentary Group and the Executive Committee.
Last November, an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life confirmed that both Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and Gozo and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri abused their power and violated ministerial ethics by securing a lucrative public position for Bartolo's wife, Amanda Muscat.
What happened thereafter was that while Clayton Bartolo resigned as tourism minister and as a Labour MP, a resignation duly accepted by Robert Abela, only to remain an independent MP, Clint Camilleri insisted he did nothing wrong and followed all rules and procedures throughout, a lame justification that Robert Abela freely and inexplicably accepted.
Abela's premiership has been characterised by scandal and moral decay. To date, he has managed to cling to the vain hope that his character was factored into the political decision of his party and the electorate: he continues to maintain public support and his party continues to maintain its support for him. But the issue with making a deal with the devil is eventually you realise that you've made a deal with the devil.
Byron Camilleri's offer to resign provides a further indication, if any were needed, of Robert Abela's precarious situation. No prime minister likes to lose ministers. Any changes around the cabinet table risk destabilising the balance of opinion in government and undermining Abela's ability to hold the ring.
The fact that Byron Camilleri promptly offered his resignation as soon as he got to know about the incredible and surreal drug heist draws attention to the challenge now facing him, that is to say, the need to protect what's left of his tarnished reputation and personal standing, despite a suspicious and questionable Cabinet support and backing for him.
One plausible reason for this resignation conundrum could relate to ministerial staffing. The effective ministerial talent pool is always small at the best of times, and this is evident in the current Labour ministerial line-up.
When exactly ministers and MPs should resign is an inexact science in which their general standing matters more than what they have done. It all begs the question: Why do politicians never resign for the right reasons? The trouble with resignations is that they so rarely happen for the right reasons.
On serious resigning matters, Robert Abela seems to be in quite a big confusion.
Our prime minister and ministers must understand the need to uphold the very highest standards of propriety.
The precious principles of public life-integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest-must be honoured at all times.
It's time we revived the constitutional convention of ministerial responsibility. This is not an area regulated by statute; rather, the practice has developed according to precedent and guidance.
Ministers inform and explain, apologise, take remedial action, or resign in support of the convention of ministerial responsibility. The responsibility of individual ministers for their own conduct and that of their departments is a vital aspect of accountable and democratic parliamentary government.
Recent grave and shocking situations developing in departments, agencies and entities under Byron Camiller's watch, be it the latest damning Ombudsman's report on what went on in our prisons, the serious breach of security when 200 kg of drugs from the army barracks were readily carried away, or the previous string of controversies, have been serious enough to warrant the ultimate sanction.
A resignation, more so when it is offered and accepted, can and should be a manifestation of personal integrity, with the person acting on belief and commitment, thereby attaining reflective equilibrium in which actions are consistent with both role and personal expectations.
Dr Mark Said is a lawyer