Top court strips Berlusconi of immunity

Italy's Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, as well as other top officials, should not have immunity from prosecution while in office.

The ruling paves the way for the re-opening of several cases against the premier, including one concerning a €475,000 bribe.

"This is a politically-motivated sentence but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the government and the majority will continue to govern, as they have done since April 2008, in the way that Italians requested with their votes," Mr Berlusconi's spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said in a statement.

The 73-year old prime minister has repeatedly complained of being a victim of "left-wing" magistrates who in his view have waged a partisan campaign against him since he first entered politics 15 years ago.

Mr Berlusconi's lawyers had tried to make the case that the head of the Council of ministers is "first above peers" as long as he is office, meaning that he needs protection from penal charges. A law was passed to this end just six weeks after Mr Berlusconi's re-election last year.

But on Wednesday, the top court deemed the law unconstitutional and said the country's president, premier and two speakers of the parliament could not place themselves above the law.

The ruling paves the way for several court cases against Mr Berlusconi to be re-opened, including one in which he is accused of giving a €475,000 bribe to a British tax lawyer, David Mills, in return for Mr Mills giving false evidence at two trials in the 1990s. Mr Mills was convicted and given a four-and-a-half year jail sentence, which he is appealing.

However, the top court's decision did not lead to more calls from the opposition for early elections, after a series of sex scandals and misuse of public money that have surrounded Mr Berlusconi since the spring.

Only the small ‘Italia dei Valori' liberal party led by former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, called for Mr Berlusconi's resignation, while the rest stressed that the ruling should not trigger snap elections. And despite all the scandals, Mr Berlusconi's popularity is still around 50 percent, according to latest polls.