Berlusconi immunity law overruled

[TheQuiltedLlama 34]

Berlusconi immunity law overruled

Italy's constitutional court has overturned a law granting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office.

The move opens the possibility that Mr Berlusconi could stand trial in at least three court cases, including one in which he is accused of corruption.

The judges said immunity violated the principle that all citizens were equal.

Mr Berlusconi said he had expected the ruling as the court was made up of left-wing judges, and would not resign.

"We must govern for five years with or without the law," he told reporters outside his residence in Rome.

The prime minister said any trial involving him would be a "farce".

'Distractions'

The BBC's Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says the news has stunned Italy, where he has widespread public support, although that has dipped in recent times.

The opposition has already called on him to step down, although it remains unclear how Mr Berlusconi's coalition partners will react, our correspondent says.

When Mr Berlusconi came to office he was facing at least three court cases, including one involving the British lawyer David Mills.

In that case Mr Berlusconi was accused of bribing him to give false evidence.

Mills, who said he was innocent, was sentenced in February to four years and six months in prison for corruption.

Mr Berlusconi and his lawyers had argued that he needed the immunity law to carry out his duties as prime minister, our correspondent says.

The appeal to the Constitutional Court was launched by prosecutors including those from the Mills case.

They contended that immunity put Mr Berlusconi above the law and needed to be reversed.

Mr Berlusconi argued that immunity allowed him to govern without being "distracted" by the judiciary.

ANALYSIS

Duncan Kennedy BBC News, Rome Politically it's not quite clear what might happen now. It all depends on Mr Berlusconi himself, who has said in the past day or so that he would not resign if the cases went against him. Coalition partners the Northern League have spoken of mobilising their forces if Mr Berlusconi were to lose this case. They have not yet clarified their position on that - whether that would mean they would pull out from the coalition, sparking elections. We will wait to see. The opposition have already called on Mr Berlusconi to resign if he loses this case although they are very weak and fragmented and don't have the same power as Mr Berlusconi's coalition partners.

 

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/8295716.stm

Published: 2009/10/07 18:17:12 GMT

© BBC MMIX

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[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[GlobexCo 33]

I'm from Italy and there are things that you can't read on newspapers, you must be here.

Complicate situations are happening here (people who try everything to govern), but I think this isn't the right place to talk...

So I'll only say: OK.

[TheQuiltedLlama 34]

Originally posted by: GlobexCo

I'm from Italy and there are things that you can't read on newspapers, you must be here.

Complicate situations are happening here (people who try everything to govern), but I think this isn't the right place to talk...

So I'll only say: OK.quote>

I would really appreciate it if you would talk about it here. Over here (UK) we all got into an almighty kerfuffle becuase our MPs spent too much on their expenses, yet when Berlusconi has committed serious corruption he remains popular among the Italian people. Of course, the fact he controls almost all of the mainstream media in Italy could be a contributing factor...

[blade2k5 1,523]

[panthersimcity4 162]

Berlusconi is still in power? Wow. I thought he was kicked out or something. Someone needs to knock some sense into Italy

[belfastuniguy 18]

He was voted back into power no that long ago,

[Duke87 1,070]

Interesting.

In the US, the president has such immunity granted by the constitution. The police can't arrest the president, nor can he stand trial like any other citizen while in office. Instead, the senate has to impeach him.

The logic here being that it would be a bad idea to let local authorities have the power to compromise the presidency by arresting him for jaywalking or some other silly thing because they don't like him. And arresting his underlings won't work either since he can just pardon them from whatever crimes they may be accused of.

I don't know if the concept of impeachment exists in parliamentary democracy, so I don't know that this approach would work for Italy. Although I suppose even without it parliament would have the authority to call an election (a power congress here absolutely does not have), get him voted out of office, and then you could arrest him and make him stand trial.

Indeed, there is something to be said for the argument that having the leader of your country be on trial severely hinders their ability to do their job of, well, leading - so immunity makes sense in that regard.

[hamsterTK 93]

Your absolutely right

I always thought that was potential weakness in the system though if one party became too powerful in the senate and it became impossible to impeach the prez even if he or she ended up being Hitler 2.0

[CDB 3]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Interesting.

In the US, the president has such immunity granted by the constitution. The police can't arrest the president, nor can he stand trial like any other citizen while in office. Instead, the senate has to impeach him.

The logic here being that it would be a bad idea to let local authorities have the power to compromise the presidency by arresting him for jaywalking or some other silly thing because they don't like him. And arresting his underlings won't work either since he can just pardon them from whatever crimes they may be accused of.

I don't know if the concept of impeachment exists in parliamentary democracy, so I don't know that this approach would work for Italy. Although I suppose even without it parliament would have the authority to call an election (a power congress here absolutely does not have), get him voted out of office, and then you could arrest him and make him stand trial.

Indeed, there is something to be said for the argument that having the leader of your country be on trial severely hinders their ability to do their job of, well, leading - so immunity makes sense in that regard.

quote>

There is no impeachment, but the police can arrest someone in the government only if the Parliament votes to allow the arrest, even after the sentence of a court. That should be enough, IMHO.

The problem is that Berlusconi is involved in tons of trials for corruption and the such, most if not all of them not related to his activity as politician (it's common opinion among his opposers that he became a politician to hide or fix his past crimes by manipulation of the law) and he doesn't want to be judged, plain and simple. He's screwing Italian justice for the past 15 years to avoid judgement: depenalization of serious financial crimes, reducements of prescription times, attempts to make some kind of proof illegal... nevertheless, he seems involved in such a huge amount of s**** that no matter what he does, there's always something he can be put under judgement for. That's why he's aiming for total immunity.

Also, the main problem with this law is that Italy's Prime Minister has no limit to his terms and can be re-elected any time he wants, which basically means a potential lifetime immunity. Not a good thing.

As for the elections, it's a little bit more convoluted. I hope I'll be able to explain this correctly.

There are the President of the Republic (head of State with little power), the Presidents of the Chambers and the President of the Council of Ministers, which is a fancy name for the Prime Minister (head of government).

In theory (later I'll explain why), the Parliament is elected by the citizens. Every seven years the Parliament in joint session elects the President of the Republic. After every national election (every five years, if the government doesn't resign before the end of the term), each Chamber elects its President and the elected majority nominates the Prime Minister (well, officially he or she is nominated by the President of the Republic with the advise of the majority, but that's just pro forma) who chooses the other members of the government.

The government needs the vote of  support by the Parliament at the beginning of the legislature and the Parliament or the government can call for other support votations at any time. To make it brief, the Parliament can make the government resign by calling a support votation and voting against it; then if there is still a majority a new government is formed, otherwise new elections are called.

I said "in thery" because after the "mani pulite" corruption scandal (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_pulite) direct vote to the deputies or senators was considered too prone to the so called "voto di scambio" (exchange vote, that is "if you vote for me, I'll grant you some personal favour"), so the electoral law was changed to allow only blocked list of deputies and senators nominated by the respective party .

Berlusconi kicked in this system with a colaition in 2001 and now a party born from that coalition that was ans still is an ungodly mixture of former political adversaries of the right side (liberists, right socialists, laics, catholics, nationalists, federalist, Mani Pulite leftovers, men suspected to be mafiosi, you name it) who, according to a lot of people's opinion (shared even by some Berlusconi supporters), are still together just because of Berlusconi's personal charisma (and his money, maybe ).

To make it brief, the present majority has no possible candidate other than Berlusconi, most of his party's deputies are his trusted men (there are even his lawyers among them) or are kept quiet by giving them some important role in government commissions or with the promulgation of some law of their interest, so there are little possibilities that his majority falls apart and lives him and his government without the support vote.

[GlobexCo 33]

Originally posted by: TheQuiltedLlama

Originally posted by: GlobexCo

I'm from Italy and there are things that you can't read on newspapers, you must be here.

Complicate situations are happening here (people who try everything to govern), but I think this isn't the right place to talk...

So I'll only say: OK.quote>

I would really appreciate it if you would talk about it here. Over here (UK) we all got into an almighty kerfuffle becuase our MPs spent too much on their expenses, yet when Berlusconi has committed serious corruption he remains popular among the Italian people. Of course, the fact he controls almost all of the mainstream media in Italy could be a contributing factor...

quote>

Most of the Italians love Berlusconi because he is a man who was a manager. He gave us Mediaset (pirvate television), he gave and he is giving money to us. Two years ago someone tried to vote the opposite parts and they didn't nothing good. So now we have Berlusconi and most of us like him because he do good things, he reduce taxes, after the earthquake in Abruzzo he asked to build new houses with gouvernement moneys,...

At the moment, loosers like Franceschini try to destroy Berlusconi's reputation and many times only information of these actions are in newspapers. And then, Berlusconi is very funny! Example: Berlusconi was talking about the crysis and he told to managers that they were like toros and he was the torero...

In Italy the only one who seem to know how to govern a country is Berlusconi.

Delete this message if against site rules...

Please, I don't want to start a political debate, so be careful when answering to this post.

[CDB 3]

Also, some Italians get brainwashed, as you can clearly see in the previous post.

[fukuda 351]

My my, who cares about him being a Propaganda Due member, related to Operation Gladio and right-wing terrorism?

Or about him controlling all the media and sending his propaganda all over the country? And threatening other european newspapers with trials if they say anything bad about him?

Or about his suspended trials? Or his ministers doing fascist symbols in front of everyone? His total disdain for the separation of powers is quite impressive too.. According to Berlusconi, it seems that Napolitano (President) didn't "influence" enough the constitutional jury....