Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, set to go on trial this month, won backing on Tuesday for a radical justice reform that could clear two prosecutions hanging over him.
Lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, leader of one main faction in Berlusconi’s conservative coalition, gave his blessing to a draft law to impose a time limit on trials — one of the prime minister’s key demands in his fight against judges he says are biased against him.
The 73-year-old media mogul has called on his allies to commit themselves to protecting him from what he calls an onslaught by “communist” magistrates and judges, after Italy’s highest court scrapped his immunity from prosecution last month.
Fini, who previously had voiced concern about the law, said after meeting Berlusconi that it would impose a total six year limit on the three stages of court cases — initial trial, first appeal and final appeal. Italians trials can last over a decade.
The Senate leader of Berlusconi’s coalition, Maurizio Gasparri, said the bill would be presented to parliament in days and would apply retroactively to cases still in the initial trial phase — which would include prosecutions now restarting against Berlusconi for bribery and tax fraud.
“There will be limitations, for example the rules on the duration of trials will only apply to defendants with no previous convictions,” Gasparri told reporters.
A dozen past cases against Berlusconi have never achieved a conviction, often because statutes of limitations have expired.
While Italians want a reform of their inefficient judicial system, the opposition says Berlusconi’s real aim is to regain his own immunity and be shielded from upcoming trials.
“This is just a masked trick to save the prime minister,” said Felice Belisario of the Italy of Values party.
Former anti-graft magistrate Antonio Di Pietro called it “a criminal game,” while Donatella Ferranti of the main opposition Democratic Party called on legislators to reject any “tailor-made laws” to protect Berlusconi.
A trial against Berlusconi for false accounting in the acquisition of TV rights by his Mediaset television empire was to resume next Monday, but his lawyers informed the court he will be unable to attend because of a world food summit in Rome.
News that there was support for the legislation came a day after the government had another brush with the courts, when judges issued an arrest warrant on Monday for the undersecretary to Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti.
Magistrates accuse Nicola Cosentino, a parliamentarian and head of Berlusconi’s party for the Campania region around Naples, of Mafia collusion. He has denied the allegations.
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