Italy's court rejects PM immunity law

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/160025.html


Italy's top court has partially rejected a law that extended criminal prosecution immunity to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi while he is in office.

The decision by the Constitutional Court on Thursday allows individual judges to decide whether Berlusconi can be forced to face trial or not.

The judges can decide whether or not to accept excuses by the prime minister or members of his cabinet that they are unable to attend trials due to conflicts with official duties.

Berlusconi will no longer be able to automatically invoke a "legitimate impediment" claim exempting him and his ministers from appearing in court.

“The court's sentence has complicated things,” a parliamentarian in Berlusconi's People of Liberty party, Osvaldo Napoli, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying in response to the new law.

“It has turned over to the subjective evaluation of judges, facts and issues that should have been cleared up with the strength of objectivity,” he added.

A Milan court, which has accused Berlusconi of paying USD 600,000 to a UK lawyer to lie under oath, now presents the greatest legal challenge to the prime minister.

In February 2009, the lawyer, David Mills, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for accepting a bribe from Berlusconi.