August 22 has come and gone, Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco has retired from the Bench on turning 65 and an impeachment motion against him, first moved by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi in 2012 and filed again by the government in January, has never seen the light of day.

Despite repeated government assurances that it planned to move ahead with the motion, despite repeated reminders by the Opposition that time was running out, the judge has retired with full pension rights and the motion in front of Parliament is now null and void.

PN deputy leader Mario de Marco described August 22 as a black day for accountability and good governance.

The Farrugia Sacco saga goes back to 2008 when he was publicly censured by the Commission for the Administration of Justice for staying on as president of the Malta Olympics Committee. In 2012, the Commission investigated allegations in connection with the sale of tickets for the London Olympics following a reports by The Sunday Times of London. The following year, it concluded that although the judge had not been involved in the illicit sale of tickets there was prima facie proof of misbehaviour.

Before the election, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said he would follow the recommendation of the Commission. However, after the election, Labour in government changed its tune on this judge, whose son stood on the PL ticket. Although the Commission twice concluded that the judge had breached the judiciary’s code of ethics, the government would not move with the impeachment.

Farrugia Sacco mounted a legal challenge against the decision by the Commission. This prompted the government to put the impeachment motion on the backburner, a position repeatedly defended by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici who argued the former judge should first extinguish all his legal rights.

The Opposition said the government’s decision set a dangerous precedent. It pointed out that since the Speaker had ruled that an impeachment motion lasts only a legislature, waiting for a final court decision, possibly even one by the European Court of Human Rights, before proceeding with a motion, effectively meant that no member of the judiciary could ever be impeached.

Former European Human Rights Court judge Giovanni Bonello described the decision to postpone the impeachment as another precedent to confirm that the law as it stood favoured “its own defeat rather than its observance”.

When, in June, Farrugia Sacco lost his case before the Constitutional Court, the government still would not move, with the Prime Minister saying “there are measures which the judge can use”. This again prompted the Opposition to accuse the government of lengthening the process until the judge’s retirement. Farrugia Sacco appealed and Parliament went into summer recess.

At the end of the day, as Farrugia Sacco was still “extinguishing” his legal rights, the only thing that was extinguished was the time for Parliament to debate the motion.

The Justice Minister’s denial of any political tinge to the Farrugia Sacco case today looks less and less credible.

Now that the penny has dropped and Farrugia Sacco has retired in the normal manner, the average citizen who had wished to believe the Prime Minister’s promise, to believe that no one was above the law and that everyone should be accountable for his actions, even members of the judiciary, was only left with egg on his face.