The Italian Constitutional Court, meeting in secret session from 09.30 today, will decide in a few hours on the Law 51 / 2010, known as Legitimate Disability Act, the immunity shield that has allowed the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, escape from the three judicial proceedings are pending in Milan.Berlusconi said yesterday that he is "totally irrelevant" the decision taken today, the 15 judges of the Constitutional Court, because, he said, the stability of government and is not affected in any case, the charges against him (corruption, tax fraud and embezzlement) are "ridiculous." "The judges are a disease, illness, and I have sworn in the past for my children and grandchildren that I am innocent," he added.
According to leaks published today by the Italian media, the most likely scenario is that the Constitutional demolish all or part of the law. In any case, the decision does indeed seem less decisive than usual, but not for those reasons. If the Court concludes that the nth law 'ad personam' designed by Berlusconi's lawyers is unconstitutional, it would be almost impossible for the three trials that the tycoon should meet in Milan (Mediatrade cases, Mills and Mediaset) meet the deadlines set by law : In all three cases, the judges instructed the causes have shifted, and the process should restart from scratch, which most likely would prescribe in the coming months.
If, on the contrary, the High Court today declared constitutional the law 51 / 2010, Italian citizens may decide whether the rule in a referendum, promoted by the party of the opposition Italy of Values, to be held in the coming months, approved yesterday by the Constitutional Court, which also gave the green light to popular consultations on the privatization of water and construction of nuclear plants.
In the process more seriously, the judges would have a year's time to show that Berlusconi corrupted the British lawyer David Mills $ 600,000 to testify in his favor in two trials (held in 1997 and 1998) in which the politician and businessman ended acquitted. The British lawyer, developer and manager of the group of 64 offshore companies in Fininvest, was tried alone and convicted of second-degree four and a half years in prison, though the Supreme Court finally overturned the sentence considering the crime prescribed.
According to the Supreme Mills committed the crime, ie lied in his testimony before the judges and then it took a bribe from Berlusconi, but the crime was consummated on November 11, 1999 and not February 2000 as a holding statements earlier, which had already spent ten years established by law and the crime was considered extinct.
Ironically, the Supreme punished Mills to compensate for the presidency of the council of ministers (in the hands of Berlusconi) "for having harmed the image of Italian justice" is reluctant to testify in those trials. The compensation was set at 250,000 euros.
No comments:
Post a Comment