[A-List] Italy: Berlusconi moves against judiciary

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Berlusconi acts against 'Bribesville' magistrates
By Peter Popham in Rome
The Independent
16 January 2003

Silvio Berlusconi has taken advantage of his coalition government's
unassailable majority to launch a frontal assault on the magistrates whose
revelations of corruption caused the meltdown of Italy's political parties
10 years ago.

Tangentopoli, or "Bribesville", as the investigations centred on Milan
became known, exposed a massive nexus of corruption linking politicians,
bureaucrats and businessmen that was robbing the exchequer of billions of
dollars every year.

Eight former prime ministers and 5,000 businessmen and politicians were
accused of corruption. One principal loser was the Socialist party leader
and former prime minister Bettino Craxi, a close friend and patron of Mr
Berlusconi, who was convicted of corruption in absentia and died in exile in
Tunisia.

Mr Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, has long described Tangentopoli as a
"communist plot" and threatened revenge; this week he has finally taken
action. On Tuesday he assured the judiciary he had no intention of tampering
with its autonomy.

But yesterday members of his party used their majority to insist that a
parliamentary commission of inquiry will investigate "any disparity in
treatment, any incompleteness or lacunae or omissions" in the work of the
Tangentopoli magistrates, "to see if there is any correlation with the
pursuit of objectives of a political or ideological nature".

Reaction was swift and bitter. The President of the National Association of
Magistrates, Edmondo Bruti Liberati, said: "This is completely contrary to
the principle of separation of powers."

Antonio di Pietro, the campaigning magistrate who became famous through his
Tangentopoli revelations, said: "This is an immoral act and it will
definitely boomerang. It's not those who disclosed the crimes who are guilty
but those who committed them."

Mr Berlusconi has spent most of his political energy in the first 18 months
of this, his second term in office, forcing through laws to protect himself
from the plethora of cases, many alleging corruption, that have dogged his
heels for more than 10 years. With the signing into law of a Bill giving
accused the right to have their trials switched to another judiciary if they
can prove bias, he has achieved what some see as the primary goal of his
ministry: to stay out of prison. Now he is moving on to the offensive,
seeking revenge on those who brought low the rich and powerful in so
spectacular a fashion.