Italian politics: Berlusconi rebuffed

Date: 17/01/04

A bad week in court for Italy's embattled prime minister

IN ITALIAN courtrooms, above the judges' bench, is displayed a ringing declaration: “The Law is Equal for All”. On January 13th, Italy's highest court decided that this means what it says. The constitutional court struck down a law passed by parliament last June granting immunity from trial to the state's five most senior officials, including the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The issue had been referred to the court by judges in a case against Mr Berlusconi that was suspended when the law came into force last July.

Although the court has not yet given its reasons, it hinted that it agreed with both points made by judges in a lower court. The appellants had argued that the law violated two articles of the constitution: one that Italians are “equal before the law”, and another that guarantees them the right to defend their interests in court. By providing automatic immunity, the act stripped the five office-holders of their right to take on accusers before a judge.

For Italy's increasingly embattled prime minister, the constitutional court's decision was not so much a slap on the wrist as a punch in the mouth. It was the second time in a month that those charged with guaranteeing fair play in Italian public life had decided that his government was threatening it. Last month President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi refused to sign into law a bill that he believed would reinforce the overwhelming dominance of Mr Berlusconi's mighty media empire. Even some of the prime minister's supporters must be wondering whether all this is really only a plot against Mr Berlusconi, as he and his allies still insist.

“Damned communists”, was how one deputy of the prime minister's Forza Italia party greeted the court ruling. “It's a disgrace and a demonstration that the constitutional court is a political institution,” said Carlo Taormina, who - like several other Forza Italia lawmakers - is a member of Mr Berlusconi's personal legal team. It was reported that the court had split 10-5. Government supporters say this reflects its political make-up. Most of its judges were appointed by Mr Ciampi's predecessor, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who clashed repeatedly with Mr Berlusconi when he was previously in office in 1994.

Yet that scarcely makes the judges “communists”. Mr Scalfaro is a lifelong Christian Democrat and devout Roman Catholic. Like Mr Ciampi, though, he felt that Mr Berlusconi needed restraining. The prime minister's supporters counter that the immunity they proposed is guaranteed to heads of state and government in some other democratic countries. That is a fair point. Yet, as so often with the Berlusconi government, the suspicion remains that possibly defensible legislation was being proposed for indefensible motives.

The suspended trial, in which Mr Berlusconi is accused of bribing judges, will now have to be reopened within two months. And it may not, as originally expected, have to start again from scratch, which would ensure that the prime minister would benefit from a statute of limitations. A new panel of judges will be sworn in, but the man who will head it, Judge Franco Castellano, was quoted this week as saying that most of the evidence already admitted was “fully valid and usable”.

Last November, Mr Berlusconi's former lawyer, Cesare Previti, was cleared of one of the charges levelled at Mr Berlusconi. But he was convicted of a related corruption charge. A restarted trial is thus likely to occupy Mr Berlusconi's time with legal concerns and get in the way of the centre-right's declared intention of reforming and modernising the country. None of this will restore unity to the fragile coalition: several parties are unhappy, and the Northern League is threatening to quit. It is not impossible that Mr Berlusconi may try to cut through his troubles, and wrong-foot the opposition, by calling fresh elections in the next few months.

Antonio di Pietro, the anti-corruption prosecutor-turned-politician, said that the constitutional court's ruling would restore faith in Italy as a country governed by the rule of law. But more court cases involving Mr Berlusconi will also draw attention to claims of low ethical standards in Italian business and public life. With the inquiry into the bankruptcy of the food group Parmalat now pointing not only to fraud on a huge scale but also to the involvement of politicians as well as businessmen, Italy's image has seldom been worse.

Mr Berlusconi's troubles do not end there. In another court case this week, a Rome judge dismissed his libel suit against La Repubblica, which had reprinted much of an article about Mr Berlusconi's past that appeared in The Economist in April 2001. The judge said she had no jurisdiction over the libel suit against The Economist; if Mr Berlusconi wishes to proceed, he will have to start again in Milan. She also ordered him to make a contribution to both defendants' costs.

Amid all the judicial clamour, the most ominous sound may have been the total silence of the prime minister himself. The biggest danger of all is that a wounded, cornered Mr Berlusconi could initiate a conflict between the executive and judiciary more ruthless than anything seen so far. “The [immunity law] allowed a truce,” his justice minister, Roberto Castelli, said. “The verdict of the constitutional court could again unleash the war.”

Italy's constitutional court has struck down a law passed by the Italian parliament in June 2003 granting immunity from trial to the state's five most senior officials, including the Prime Minister.