The prodigal professor returned on Tuesday: Edward Scicluna was officially reinstated in his role as Governor of the Central Bank and as a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank at the behest of Prime Minister Robert Abela.

This came exactly a year after a court of law found there is enough prima facie evidence for Scicluna and others to stand trial in connection with the Vitals hospitals concession.

The group is charged with fraud and misappropriation, with Scicluna being also accused of making fraudulent gain through abuse of office. He pleaded not guilty and the case is still ongoing, with Scicluna now awaiting trial.

The government said that the Prime Minister had consulted with the European Central Bank, which, as an independent institution, raised no objections to Scicluna's request to be reinstated.

While it may be the case that the European Central Bank had no issues with Scicluna's reinstatement - one must question whether him being reinstated while still awaiting trial for what are very serious charges is sending the right message.

There is of course a political angle to all of this. From the day charges were issued on the Vitals case, Robert Abela has done everything he can to try and discredit it. Ranging from calling into question and raising doubts on the inquiring magistrates to him and his Labour Party compatriots outright saying that they believe that the accused will be found innocent - there has been a consistent campaign to undermine this case.

The re-appointment of Ronald Mizzi to the post of Permanent Secretary was yet another sign of this.

There is an element of hypocrisy in all of this of course: public officials facing criminal charges are being held to a different standard as people like Mizzi and Scicluna are.

Abela's own reforms from earlier this summer recognise this.  Back in January Abela had said that he could not bear to see people "who are clearly innocent being dragged through the courts for years on end" and referred to two former Permanent Secretaries - Alfred Camilleri and Joseph Rapa - who are facing charges in the Vitals case as examples of people with "not one shred of evidence" against them.

He said that people were being "terrorised" by some who were abusing of the criminal justice system and he vowed to change the law to stop this from happening.  Yet when the legal change eventually came it was significantly different, counting only for civil suits and not criminal cases - meaning that it does not apply to people like Camilleri, Rapa, Mizzi or Scicluna.

Even Abela's government therefore accepted that when a civil servant is facing criminal charges it shouldn't step in to pick up the slack, but it should leave the court process take its due course.

Yet in Scicluna's case, Abela wants us to forget about the criminal charges that he is facing - he wants to continue as if it's business as usual.  But it's not business as usual to have the governor of your Central Bank facing fraud and misappropriation charges.  Or at least, it shouldn't be.

It took a whole boatload of fuss and hassle for Scicluna to be suspended on half-pay (a half-pay which was still somewhere around triple the salary of the average worker) in the first place.

As Abela and the government continue to try to discredit the Vitals case - even as it remains sub-judice - the prodigal professor's return to office perhaps does not come as a surprise.  But that doesn't make it any less disappointing.