Prime Minister Robert Abela on Wednesday wrote to the Standards Commissioner to ask him to ignore the time-barring on allegations that were the subject of two separate requests for investigations filed earlier in the day, saying that he has nothing to hide.

Both Repubblika and Momentum chairman Arnold Cassola on Wednesday filed formal complaints against Abela to the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life requesting an investigation into serious allegations made under oath by Judge Lawrence Mintoff.

In a letter sent to the Cabinet on Saturday, Judge Mintoff made a number of accusations against Abela, saying that he had been arbitrarily excluded from the running to be Malta’s next Chief Justice simply because he had been nominated by the Nationalist Party.

Other allegations included that Abela put pressure on a court employee, used parliamentary questions in a context of personal financial interest, had privately communicated with a sitting judge concerning judicial appointments (this being Mintoff himself), and political considerations in relation to the appointment of the Chief Justice.

Repubblika made no determination of guilt in their complaint but maintained that allegations of this nature, made under oath by a member of the judiciary, require immediate and independent scrutiny.

Cassola was more heavy-handed in his criticism, saying in his complaint that one cannot help but observe that Niccolò Machiavelli appears a novice and an amateur when compared to the alleged conduct of Abela.

In response to the news, Abela wrote a letter to Standards Commissioner former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi noting that “the absolute majority of the allegations in both reports are time-barred in accordance to the law which regulates your office as they refer to years ago when I was still a lawyer.”

However, he said that he is so willing for the full truth and all the facts to be investigated by him and made known that he was renouncing any limit or time-barring on the allegations, “so that you are free to investigate both reports and reach your own conclusions.”

Judge Mintoff is also facing an ethics probe over the letter, as the matter has been referred to the Commissioner for Standards for the Judiciary. Under judicial ethics rules, members of the judiciary are prohibited from communicating with the executive about their work, as Judge Mintoff allegedly did by sending his letter to all ministers.