Noel Arrigo has dragged the judiciary through the mud; not once, but twice and all the other fractions between. From the moment he was caught red handed to the second he was sentenced last Thursday, he did everything he could to evade punishment.
He did not care if along the way he lied, he did not care if he misused his legal knowledge, and he did not care - seven years on from one of the most despicable acts in Maltese history - if he once again reopened a wound that the country had hoped was finally healing. He only cared about himself.
Many still recall the shock they felt when former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami broke the news on August 1, 2002, that Dr Arrigo and another judge, Patrick Vella, were being investigated by police in connection with bribery charges for reducing the jail term of a convicted drug trafficker. Both were initially reluctant to do the decent thing and resign, until they were effectively forced to do so as the government declared its intention to press ahead with unprecedented impeachment procedures.
But then they took divergent paths. Dr Vella, who had bought jewellery with the money he received, admitted his part in the crime and in 2007 was sentenced to two years' imprisonment by the same judge, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, who presided over the trial of Dr Arrigo. He served 16 months and walked out a free man last year.
If Dr Arrigo had done the same, he would in all likelihood by now be a free man too. But instead he spun a web of untruths, chief among which was the manufacture of a poorly thought-out false alibi. And he tried to play the system - or make a "tactical move" as the trial judge described it - by arguing that since he did not receive the money before he reduced the drug trafficker's term, then under Maltese law he should not be convicted of bribery.
Mr Justice Caruana Demajo - who everyone acknowledges had a difficult task in determining the fate of a man who was formerly one of his own - was having none of it. He correctly looked into Dr Arrigo's conduct and intentions as well as his deeds before pronouncing him guilty of the bribery charge.
However, when the maximum sentence was four years and three months, it is difficult for the public to understand why the former Chief Justice - who would have been better advised to leave his rosary beads in his pocket rather than flaunt them - received less than three.
Dr Arrigo was not just an ordinary judge. He accepted the privilege and responsibility to be the head of the judiciary, the guardian of one of the most august institutions in the land. Yet he sold the integrity of that institution for just €11,000, with the ease and style one might use to trade a second-hand car, only six months after he was appointed to the post. Then he attempted to obstruct the investigation. If these are not aggravating factors that merit a maximum jail term, it is difficult to see what are.
Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano recently said that, in sentencing, judges should not seek to reflect public opinion. That is true. But that does not mean they should not take into account public faith in the justice system - especially in the case of a person who has so dreadfully undermined it.