IN A MOST unusual move, former Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi has this week bitterly criticized the government of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Referring to the government’s plans to force controversial judicial reform through parliament by the end of the year, Mr Ciampi said: “We live in a sad time. I never imagined that in the closing years of my life that I would be witness to such a barbarisation of politics, witness to such a systematic and crude attack on all those institutions and values in which I believed.” He was speaking to the daily, La Repubblica, this week.
The focus of his concern is the series of ad personam (tailor-made) laws introduced since 2001 by Berlusconi governments. Opponents claim these laws were designed either to resolve Mr Berlusconi’s pending judicial problems or to facilitate the affairs of his Fininvest group.
Last month, Italy’s constitutional court annulled 2008 legislation that had given the prime minister immunity from prosecution while in office. That annulment appeared to pave the way for the reopening of two trials in which Mr Berlusconi stands accused of bribery, corruption and tax fraud.
However, within days of the constitutional court rejecting the Lodo Alfano, the prime minister’s centre-right Freedom Party (PDL) announced it would present an alternative judicial reform Bill, currently before the senate. Essentially, the new Bill would put a two-year time cap on all three levels of judgment – initial hearing, appeal and second appeal.
Critics say the new proposals amount to little more than an “amnesty in disguise” for Mr Berlusconi, since the reforms would force the eventual dismissal of the two cases pending against him – namely the accusation he paid British lawyer David Mills a $600,000 bribe for false testimony in court cases involving his Fininvest company in the 1990s, and a charge of tax fraud related to the purchase of TV rights by his Mediaset company.
“We introduce reforms for citizens, not individuals. We’ve had enough of these ad personam laws which do nothing either to resolve people’s problems or to make this a better country,” said the former president.
In another unusual move, Mr Ciampi also appeared to urge his successor, President Giorgio Napolitano, to use his presidential veto when presented with controversial legislation, saying: “If a law is not right, then do not sign it.”
Opposition forces have deplored the proposed legislation, many arguing it will prove unconstitutional while more than 375,000 have signed an online petition from anti-Mafia writer, Roberto Saviano, calling on the government to withdraw the proposed processo breve (quick trial) reform. La Repubblica this week calculated that, since 2001, Mr Berlusconi has introduced 18 such ad personam laws. The prime minister argues such laws are needed to protect him from a politically motivated, leftist judiciary.