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Blow to Berlusconi over immunity
Constitutional court says individual judges can decide on whether to prosecute Italian PM over alleged offences.
Last Modified: 13 Jan 2011 15:08 GMT
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Berlusconi has been dogged by a variety of charges, including corruption [Reuters] Italy's top court has partially struck down a law shielding the country's prime minister from legal action.The constitutional court met on Thursday to rule on the legitimacy of an immunity law that has allowed Silvio Berlusconi to avoid criminal prosecution while in office.
The ruling means individual judges can decide whether Berlusconi can be forced to face trial.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the court ruled that Berlusconi could not automatically invoke a "legitimate impediment" claim exempting him and cabinet ministers from attending trials in progress because of their official duties.
Under the current law adopted last year, Berlusconi cannot be called upon in judicial proceedings because he is fulfilling his duties as head of the government - an arrangement that has angered the opposition.
"It is the best that Berlusconi could have hoped for at this point," Al Jazeera's Sabina Castelfranco said, reporting from Rome.
Our correspondent said that the public was still awaiting a press statement from the court itself.
Unfazed leader
Berlusconi was characteristically confident before the ruling, announcing during a visit to Berlin on Wednesday that "it really does not matter to me whether these trials are stopped or not".
Italian media reports had predicted a compromise that would give Berlusconi and his ministers partial immunity.
La Repubblica newspaper quoted sources close to the court on Thursday as saying the 15 judges who will rule on the issue are divided, with eight favouring an annulment of the law and seven in favour of it.
Berlusconi's battles with the law have marked his public life since he burst on to the political scene in the mid-1990s.
He has faced charges including corruption, tax fraud, false accounting and illegally financing political parties.
'Insignificant ruling'
Although some initial judgments have gone against the tycoon, Berlusconi has never been definitively convicted.
If the constitutional court had scrapped the law entirely, two trials against Berlusconi that have been effectively frozen by the legislation could have re-started.
The first is for alleged tax fraud by Berlusconi's Mediaset business empire and the second is for the suspected bribery of the prime minister's former lawyer David Mills.
But the Corriere della Sera newspaper said on Thursday the ruling would most probably be insignificant because the trials "are so behind by now that they are almost certainly destined to run out of time" under the statute of limitations.
Source:
Agencies
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