Last week should have been a bad week for Labour MP Luciano Busuttil, possibly the worst in his political career. An appeals court ordered an investigation into “serious allegations” of conflict of interest involving him and advice he gave Cospicua council on the adjudication of a tender for the collection of domestic waste.

One of the bidders for the tender, WM Environmental Ltd, told the court that Dr Busuttil had advised the council to reject its offer, with the result that it went instead to one of his clients. The MP has said that at the time of the tender adjudication, the successful bidder was no longer his client.

The court still took the allegation extremely seriously and in addition to ordering the adjudication process to start afresh, sent copies of its judgment to the Attorney General, the Director of Contracts and the Commission for the Administration of Justice for the necessary investigations to be carried out.

The decision puts Dr Busuttil, as a lawyer, and even more, as Member of Parliament, in quite a spot. He told this newspaper that the court had an obligation to order an investigation but added he believed that the fact that he was an MP had “played a part”.

Moving into victim mode is not how an MP should approach these immensely damaging accusations. MPs are public figures and should expect far more scrutiny than any private individual. Furthermore, Dr Busuttil is also chairman of the Malta Sports Council, another public post. Yet, he has emerged apparently unruffled from it all. The Prime Minister said he would leave it up to the commission to investigate, despite a call by the Nationalist Party for him to take steps against Dr Busuttil until investigations are completed. Life simply went on, like nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, State television, PBS, reported the court case but totally omitted that Dr Busuttil is an MP, referring to him instead as just an ordinary lawyer. This is not the kind of service that is to be expected from a television station funded by taxpayer’s money. In fact, it is a gross disservice.

The government’s complete indifference to the Busuttil saga underlines once again the urgent need for Parliament to move ahead with the Bill on Standards in Public Life which is still awaiting second reading. The Bill provides for the appointment of a commissioner and a standing committee with power to investigate breaches of statutory or ethical duties of people in public life including ministers, parliamentary secretaries, MPs, employees in a position of trust and persons engaged as advisers or consultants to the government or any statutory body.

The Busuttil case would have been a matter the still-to-be-appointed commissioner could have been asked to look into, on the grounds that Dr Busuttil is both an MP and a holder of a position of trust.

There is also a third pillar – Dr Busuttil’s position within the Labour Party. After so much talk of public accountability when still in Opposition, this is one case that the party should be looking at closely considering it involves one of its MPs and one of its local councils with allegations of a conflict of interest and tender documents gone missing.

There are multiple levels at which one would have expected some kind of reaction to this damning court sentence. Instead, there is a deafening silence.