The title of this piece, more often than not, is the advice given to young academics at the dawn of their career. However, the past few days have brought into sharp relief the speed at which social media can deliver information (whether false or not) and the speed at which the crowd (whether fickle or not) makes up its mind.

The charges laid at the door of Malta’s highest institution cannot be ignored any longer.

For too long, the government has hoped that this black mark would fade under the bright light of the shining economic boom, but indelible it has been and there is no mistaking that the people demand an answer.

The highest form of pressure, from us the people, should be applied for a swift resolution, and clear answers and accusations should be presented to us.

As a citizen of the country, I hereby petition that the accusations laid at the door of a duly-elected government by its very own citizens be investigated by the police and the judiciary under the scrutiny of a public forum.

So often have politicians got away with the likes of graft and corruption that it has become par for the course for governance. If the accusations hold and the officials of our government (elected and non-elected) are found guilty of graft, or even intent of graft, then as citizens of the country, our duty is not only to make sure that the officials step down, but that they are prosecuted and put away for a very long time, if for nothing else to serve as an example to anyone interested in besmirching our country’s name for a fistful of ‘oil-infested’ dollars.

However, there is no doubt in my mind that as the same law-abiding citizen, if the accusations are false, the consequences in the eyes of justice should be meted out in equal proportion. The libel laws in our country need to be bolstered and the journalistic community held accountable, as they indeed represent one of the last free voices so vital to a healthy democratic process. The speed of the libel process (and many of the other legal processes) resembles a more spherical form of the Easter eggs we consumed last Sunday, and this has to change. The justice system needs to be reformed: we live in a country where wife-beaters and animal torturers walk freely.

Publish or perish – collect the evidence diligently, corroborate it, bring it forward to the people through the press, and bring it to the law courts through the right channels.

Line up your ducks for the officials of our law courts and the citizens of the country to decide. If justice is fleeting and forgiving, history won’t be.

Facts have oil-like properties, tending to resurface even through the most viscous and opaque of fluids.

Let us deal in facts, let the currency of our society be fact, presented through a free, unencumbered and responsible press. Let us set up a professional body, like a medical council, for our press and journalists, where journalists act as custodians of their own code of morals and ethics.

Let us ensure that publication, both digital and paper, is not perceived to be biased or muzzled by the higher powers of the country, but held only accountable to the veracity and certainty of the facts being presented to us, the people, to ensure that we make careful, considered choices when electing our representatives to Parliament.

Truth should be the only measure of quality.

Often lacklustre, often elusive, often buried beneath thick clouds of smoke and shimmering mirrors, truth must be the goal.

Speed of delivery is inconsequential; there is only integrity. The truth, inescapable from the chronicles of history, will continue to shine on, and those who treat it as inconsequential do so at the peril of their reputation.

To conclude, this week we find ourselves in a classical Mexican standoff – a ‘Breakfast at the Last Chance Saloon’.

This farce has gone on long enough, this pantomime is old in the tooth, and this show must definitely not go on, so I hereby implore the Police Commissioner to follow up the serious allegations being presented and to carry out an immediate investigation of the sternest indictments laid at this government’s door – let the sword of justice fall blindly upon whosoever sullies our country’s name.

This is imperative if we are still to believe we live in a just, democratic country that we have grown so proud of.

Kristian Zarb Adami is an astrophysics professor at the University of Malta and the University of Oxford.