During Monday’s parliamentary debate, some Opposition MPs were indignant that Konrad Mizzi offered no apology for having opened his company in Panama. Is that all they’re indignant about? How about that Mizzi was brazen enough to claim to be a victim of a trial by media?

If he’s right, we’re the ones who owe him an apology. He’s saying the media have behaved unprofessionally, like a mob. If our media organisations have a gram of self-respect, they would demand a retraction.

It’s not just a matter of self-regard.

The Prime Minister has signalled that he plans to ask Mizzi to step down as minister anyway. He might even have done so by the time you read this. But the plan seems to be to get Mizzi to resign while lionising him for his public spiritedness in doing so – given that the much-touted audit will find him innocent of illegality.

In any other European country, Mizzi would henceforth be referred to as the disgraced former minister and shunned by his own political party. In Malta, even if he goes, he might well end up hailed by his political party. The rest of us should count ourselves lucky if we’re not quite expected to be apologetic for having made him the media’s victim.

That’s why it’s important for the media not to let him get away with slandering it. His behaviour has been disgraceful enough already – disgraceful in opening up his Panama company; disgraceful in not resigning early to limit the damage to Malta’s international financial reputation; and disgraceful in the explanations, insulting to our intelligence, that he has given over the last two months. Now, this.

‘Trial by media’ does not mean judging a politician in the press. It refers to those occasions when the media usurp the function of a law court. In fact, however, Mizzi is going nowhere near a law court. Our police force appears to deem any investigation unnecessary.

No trial by media has taken place in Malta. The discussion has been about evidence that has surfaced through the Panama Papers. It has largely been about the political not the legal implications.

That the public has been outraged is acknowledged by Muscat and other senior Labour figures. The financial services industry and other economic bodies have declared their anxiety. In the international press, the names of a senior Maltese minister and the head of the Office of the Prime Minister have been listed alongside the names of corrupt international politicians and civil servants.

On such matters, no court of law can pass judgement. Nor can any audit firm. The media are the place where the decent democratic world conducts such discussions.

Or does Mizzi also think it was unfair that, on Friday, the Spanish minister of industry, energy and tourism was driven to resign? He was simply named in the Panama Papers. No illegalities in his dealings have so far been determined.

Yet the news was welcomed by the international press. And the acting finance minister of Spain thought it fit to say, by way of epitaph: “No one who’s operated in tax havens can be in the government.”

Mizzi’s behaviour leads to Malta’s reputation being caught in the storm of the Panama Papers

Which is, in a roundabout way, what our own education minister, Evarist Bartolo, has said. It’s what our own finance minister, Edward Scicluna, and former Prime Minister, Alfred Sant, and current Labour whip, Godfrey Farrugia, have almost said.

Mizzi should be asked whether he thinks his senior Labour colleagues are part of the trial by media as well.

Meanwhile, if there was anything inciting the discussion in the media, it was the explanations offered by Mizzi, Keith Schembri and their defenders. The explanations were manifestly inadequate. Instead of clarifying them, Mizzi and Schembri have wriggled round reasonable questions.

The official defence of Mizzi is that he was following financial advice that was technically sound but politically naïve. Unfortunately, the reports we have point to the exact opposite.

Technically sound? No media organisation has so far discovered an expert willing to agree that opening a company in Panama was good advice for someone with Mizzi’s declared assets. On the contrary, experts have been found to say that itdoesn’t make sense.

Mizzi could have shut those doubts down very easily. He just had to find an expert or two willing to stake their reputation and say that a Panama company would have been just what they would have recommended.

So far, however, not even the finance minister has endorsed that view. The only people who have said the advice was ‘technically sound’ are people with no financial expertise, like Owen Bonnici, the justice minister.

Politically naïve? The e-mails published in The Australian Financial Review, by Neil Chenoweth, who has access to the Panama Papers, show two things. First, the fact that Mizzi and Schembri are Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) was relevant for eachone of the nine banks approached by Mossack Fonseca to open an account for Mizzi and Schembri.

Second, Mizzi’s financial advisor discussed the matter with his clients, who instructed him how to proceed to address bank concerns about PEPs.

How can you be ‘politically naïve’ about opening a Panama company when you’ve been informed that banks have expressed concern about your own status as politician?

Mizzi and Schembri have both denied Chenoweth’s conclusions. They accuse him of having a hidden agenda and misunderstanding the e-mails.

We are expected to figure out for ourselves why one of the most highly respected financial journalists in Australia has decided to set his sights on a minister of a mini-state, when he established himself by taking on Rupert Murdoch, on whose empire Chenoweth is considered the world’s leading authority. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose from a dishonest attack on a minor political figure.

We’re also expected to believe that a journalist who can figure out the Byzantine intricacies of Murdoch’s affairs will trip up while sorting out an e-mail thread, and end up conflating Mizzi and Schembri with other, unnamed clients.

Nothing can be ruled out, of course. But Mizzi and Schembri have done nothing to show why Chenoweth is wrong. They simply insist that he is.

So, let’s take stock of the information in the public domain.

Mizzi claims to have received financial advice, based on his declared assets, that no expert financial advisor will admit to being willing to give him.

He claims to having been politically naïve about the implications of opening a company in Panama, when it would appear that one bank after another informed him that his political status raised special considerations.

One of the world’s leading financial journalists concludes, after reviewing the Panama Papers, that the documents throw doubt on Mizzi’s initial account of what he did and knew.

In the international press, Mizzi’s behaviour leads to Malta’s reputation being caught in the storm of the Panama Papers.

All the while, Mizzi does nothing serious to clear up the questions. His only action – asking for a financial audit – is laughable, the equivalent of looking for a lost key in the dining room when everyone knows it was dropped in the garden.

And he has the nerve to pose as a victim of a trial by media.

ranierfsadni@europe.com