James Walston, Chair of the Department of International Relations in the American university of Rome
The caricature
of Italy is a place with much style, ceremony and noise but where it takes a
lifetime to buy a postage stamp. The reality of Berlusconi's first 100 days is
very different and would make the most dedicated political reformer in any
country green with envy.
The reform is arguably constitutional and affects only four citizens of the
Republic; Italy is now unique among western democracies in that its four most
senior positions in the State have total immunity from criminal prosecution.
The President, the Prime Minister and the Speakers of the two chambers of
Parliament may not face trial as long as they hold office. In practice, of
course, this means just Silvio Berlusconi as Gianfranco Fini the Speaker of the
Chamber has already given up his immunity for a criminal libel case and neither
President Napolitano nor Senate Speaker Schifani have any pending charges nor
frankly, are they very likely to.
The Prime Minister on the other hand faces charges of having bribed an English
lawyer to commit perjury. The trial in Milan was due to come to verdict this
autumn and the presiding judge was doing her best to accelerate proceedings.
First Berlusconi tried to recuse her - a curious move at the end of an
otherwise uncontested trial, then he proposed a bill which would have delayed
some tens of thousands of trials including his own. This would have thrown the
Italian administration of justice into even greater chaos than it is at the
moment. Finally, as a "compromise" the immunity bill was rushed through
both houses of Parliament.
Unlike some of the new Berlusconi government's other controversial proposals;
there has been almost no discussion outside the country and very little
opposition in Italy itself. Fingerprinting roma children or making irregular
immigrants into criminals has provoked criticism from the European Parliament
and Commission and the Vatican as well, forcing the Government to back-track
and reconsider.
The immunity law in contrast was accepted albeit grudgingly by most of the
opposition and President Napolitano signed it into law within 24 hours despite
the Italian president's role as guarantor of the Constitution and the fact that
a similar law was overturned by the Constitutional Court the last time
Berlusconi sought immunity in 2003. Only Antonio Di Pietro, the former
anti-corruption prosecutor and now leader of the Italia dei Valori party
has said he will seek a referendum to repeal the immunity law; the mainstream
opposition leader, Walter Veltroni of the Democratic Party will not support the
referendum because, he says "if we lose, it will be worse".
This is worrying drift for Italy for two reasons. The first is that once again,
Silvio Berlusconi has shown his complete control over the executive and
legislature for a measure directly and manifestly in his favour. When he "came
onto the playing field" in 1994, the conflict of interests between a prime
minister who was also one of the country's richest men and controller of half
the electronic media and a fair portion of the rest was stunningly visible. In
more than 14 years it has not gone away, merely ceased to be an issue; Italians
have become accustomed to the Sultanate as Giovanni Sartori has called the
system. And there is a resigned presumption that when this government comes to
its natural end in 2013 coinciding with the end of President Napolitano's
mandate, Berlusconi will crown his career with seven years as head of state.
The second worry is in a sense even worse for Italy's democratic institutions.
Even assuming that they survive another five years with Berlusconi as head of
government, whatever happens afterwards, the executive will have taken a
dangerously pre-eminent position in the Italian constitutional architecture.
Berlusconi has never made a secret of what he thinks of the judiciary. In a
good mood, he likened them to condominium administrators paid to follow the
instructions given them by Parliament, and "subversive" and a "metastasis" when
he was in a bad mood. His colleagues have not been much more polite; one
minister recently called the magistrates' self-governing body "a sewer" while
speaker of the Chamber Gianfranco Fini questioned the High Court's verdict on
the 1980 Bologna bombing which involved members of his party. These are remarks
which one might expect from anti-system militants, not holders of the highest
state offices.
The Government has also drawn up a bill which would limit magistrates' powers
to use telephone intercepts as evidence which is often used to nail corrupt or
organized crime linked politicians.
Not all the measures are on pure self-interest; in a case which reflects the
Bush intervention in the Terry Schiavo case, the Government party passed a
motion saying that Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to allow a father to
stop treatment on his daughter who has been in an irreversible coma for 16
years.
One way or another, the power and authority of the judiciary is being dismantled
in favour of a populist executive which believes it should have total control
and it doing its best to achieve it. There is much which needs reforming in the
Italian judiciary but Berlusconi and his party have already completed their
personal agenda to the serious detriment of Italy's balance of state powers.