Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: Stampa estera

L'Economist
"Pero adesso molti italiani hanno dubbi sui magistrati.
Avere dubbi sulla giustizia e' la peggio sciagura che possa 
capitare ad un Paese in ossequio al detto:
La peggiore disgrazia che ossa capitare ad un Paese e' che il suo
popolo si convinca che una vita onesta non valga la pena di essere
vissuta.
Ciao
Luigino Ferrari
luf...@tin.it

vissuta.
Beh, con le gesta di Re S�la e dei suoi cortigiani sotto gli occhi
tutti i giorni, � una disgrazia inevitabile per molti.
Ecco comunque l'articolo dell'Economist:
Silvio Berlusconi's troubles
JUSTICE CAN BE EVER SO INCONVENIENT
The constitutional court rules against the prime minister again
[Economist, Oct 8th 2009]
SO IT did not work. On October 7th Italy�s constitutional court threw
out Silvio Berlusconi�s latest wheeze for putting himself above the
law. The judges voted by nine to six that an immunity law passed last
year was unconstitutional. It would have shielded from prosecution not
only the prime minister, but also the president and the speakers of
both houses of parliament. The judges decided that such a step
required a constitutional reform, not a mere law. An earlier immunity
law had been rejected by the same court in 2004.
The prime minister has long claimed to be the victim of a plot by
left-wing members of the judiciary. On this reading, the immunity law
was needed to protect him from enemies who might otherwise subvert the
will of the electorate. In the words of the defence minister, Ignazio
La Russa, the law�s rejection would be �a political decision, more
than a juridical one�. The constitutional court has added itself to Mr
Berlusconi�s long list of subversive Italian institutions. It was a
�political body�, he said, with 11 left-wingers on it. Some of his
associates advised him to respond by calling a snap election. But Mr
Berlusconi seemed untempted, saying his government would �carry on
unconcerned�.
Despite his problems with the law, Mr Berlusconi governed Italy for
two years after the previous immunity law was thrown out. This time,
he faces two trials, neither of which can do more than embarrass him.
In one, he is charged with bribery. His co-defendant David Mills, a
British lawyer, has been convicted of taking the bribe, which the
court has ruled came from Mr Berlusconi. But since the charges were
dropped after the passage of the immunity law, the prosecution will
have to start from scratch. It will probably be timed out by a statute
of limitations before a verdict is reached. In a second trial, for tax
evasion, the proceedings were suspended and can be resumed
immediately. That will be discomfiting when the government is clamping
down on tax dodgers and offering an amnesty to lure back capital. But,
again, proceedings are likely to be abandoned before the full
procedure, involving as many as three trials, has run its course. The
biggest threat to Mr Berlusconi may come from a related inquiry
involving alleged tax evasion as recently as 2005.
The court�s ruling will aggravate the recent troubles of Mr
Berlusconi, who is politically far weaker than he was a few months
ago. He is a central figure, though not a suspect, in an investigation
by prosecutors in Bari into prostitution and drug-trafficking. The
main suspect, a local businessman, is under investigation for having
supplied around 30 women for parties at the prime minister�s residence
where some stayed the night and were allegedly rewarded for doing so.
Mr Berlusconi denies knowing they were paid.
On October 3rd a judge in Milan ruled that Mr Berlusconi�s Fininvest
group should pay damages of �750m ($1.1 billion) for bribing a judge
to win control in 1991 of Mondadori, Italy�s biggest publishing house.
Fininvest�s lawyer, Cesare Previti, was convicted two years ago of
buying this judgment. The judge who awarded the damages said Mr
Berlusconi was jointly responsible for the bribe.
To Mr Berlusconi�s detractors this was a timely warning of what is at
stake, and a reminder that Italy�s prime minister is a billionaire
entrepreneur who has stood trial a dozen times. In several cases, the
only reason he has escaped conviction has been either an amnesty or a
modification of the statute of limitations sponsored by his own
government. To the prime minister�s supporters, though, the ruling is
yet more evidence that he is the victim of a plot by his enemies and
�red magistrates�. The beneficiary of the award was a company
controlled by Carlo De Benedetti, whose L�Espresso media group has
been leading investigations into the prime minister�s private life.
The right-wing conspiracy theory turns what should be a weakness into
a strength: the more the prime minister is prosecuted, the more he
seems persecuted. Large numbers of Italians now believe he is. That is
the real tragedy of Mr Berlusconi�s storm-tossed venture into
politics. Many Italians now doubt the good faith of an institution,
the judiciary, whose impartiality is essential to a functioning
democracy. Mr Berlusconi said after the court decision that he could
�not but respect it�, but he also called his trials �real farces� and
promised to prove the magistrates were all �liars�. And he hinted that
his next goal might be to change the court�s composition so that it
did not upset �the correct balance between the powers of the state�.
Such talk is reckless, even dangerous.