Italy was cast back into political turmoil on Wednesday night when the country’s constitutional court threw out a law passed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government that gave him immunity from prosecution for as long as he remained in office.
The majority decision represented a severe blow for Berlusconi, who was already struggling to contain the damage from a lurid sex and drugs scandal in which he is accused of using the services of prostitutes.
With some of Berlusconi’s associates claiming that the judges of the country’s top court had joined a plot to remove him, there was also a clear risk that Italy could be plunged into a constitutional crisis.
PHOTO: AFP
In a statement, Berlusconi dampened speculation of an early election. He said the decision had not in any way altered his “will to carry on” in government.
He said: “I cannot but respect the response from the constitutional court.”
But he appeared to foreshadow an attempt to bring the court under tighter political control when he said that “this system, and above all the way in which the members of the court are chosen, risks upsetting over time the correct balance between the powers of the state.”
Fabrizio Cicchitto, the leader of Berlusconi’s party in the lower house of parliament, blamed the outcome on a “process of politicization of the court which is joining the line of attack against prime minister Berlusconi”.
As the judges were deliberating, Berlusconi’s leading ally, the Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, warned them not to “defy the anger of the peoples [of Italy]” and vowed that, if the law were rejected, “we will enter into action, bringing out the people.”
For years Berlusconi has claimed that he is the victim of a plot by leftwing judges and prosecutors, and his followers had argued that the immunity bill was needed to protect him.
The court’s decision marks the second time in five years that Italy’s most august tribunal has rejected an attempt by the right to put its leader above the law.
A statement issued by the court said that the judges had ruled the law “constitutionally illegitimate.” Initial indications were that the court had decided a constitutional reform was needed to create immunity, whereas the government had tried to use the short cut of a routine bill.
One of Berlusconi’s lawyers, Niccolo Ghedini, appeared to acknowledge in his pleading to the court on Tuesday that the immunity act put a question mark over the constitutional principle that all Italians are equal before the law.
“The law is equal for everyone, but not always in its application,” he said.
The detailed reasoning behind the judges’ decision will not be released for several weeks. But the statement said they had agreed that the immunity law violated not only article 3, which guarantees equality before the law, but also article 138, which sets out the procedure for a constitutional change.
Among the decisions that the government will now have to take is whether to try again to furnish its leader with immunity by reforming the Constitution. But that requires either the staging of a popular referendum or a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.
A trial in Milan in which Berlusconi is charged with tax evasion, which was suspended last year after parliament approved the immunity law, can now resume. Having passed the age of 70, however, the prime minister can no longer be jailed even if found guilty.
His resumed prosecution will nevertheless be an embarrassment, coming at a time when his government is leading a campaign against tax dodgers and offering an amnesty to Italians who have salted money abroad to avoid tax.
The judges’ decision could also mean Berlusconi is again put on trial for allegedly bribing the British lawyer David Mills, the husband of the UK government minister Tessa Jowell. Mills is due to launch an appeal today against a four-and-a-half year jail sentence for accepting US$600,000 in return for skewing his testimony in two cases in which Berlusconi was a defendant in the 1990s.
The prime minister was scratched from the trial because of the immunity law, but the court ruled in May that he had given the bribe. Since the case against him would have to be started again, however, it is highly likely to be “timed out” by a statute of limitations before the judges have a chance to reach a verdict.
A more important consequence of yesterday’s decision will be to give a new relevance to two investigations in which Berlusconi is a suspect. In one, where charges are thought unlikely to be laid, allegations are being investigated that he “bought” two MPs with the aim of bringing down Italy’s last center-left government. In the second investigation, he is accused of embezzlement and tax evasion in both Italy and the US, and that case is thought likely to proceed.
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