Look at the President’s diary for today.

As at 12:10 today it says nothing about the swearing in of new judges and magistrates. It was not meant to happen today but the Government did not want to have to argue in Court on why it was ignoring the Venice Commission that said the way our Prime Minister chooses our judges means our democracy does not meet accepted norms and standards.

They can’t afford the risk of losing that argument. So at 12 noon they told the press the swearing in would be happening three hours later, at the unseemly, undignified hour of 3pm on the same day the appointments were first formally announced.

So instead they are rushing through these appointments using the President of Malta as their marionette, perfectly willing and compliant no doubt.

The government knows it is wrong. It’s been told this not by Repubblika. It’s been told this by the Venice Commission: the foremost authority on constitutional design in the world.

They’re not going to let that stop them.

Your basic right to live in a democracy, to be protected from the abuse of your government by a judiciary that is truly independent of it, to live in country where the law rules above the interests of governors, is today even weaker than it was yesterday. And it was not that great yesterday.