The Beginning of the End for Berlusconi?

October 8, 2009 — -- Italy's Silvio Berlusconi's current term as Italian prime minister has recently been marked by a series of embarrassments. An affair with a prostitute is documented and spicy photographs taken at his villa on Sardinia went around the world. Relations with a 17-year-old led to divorce proceedings with his wife, Veronica Lario.

But Berlusconi has kept going despite all the scandals. He is even less bothered by the campaigns of the opposition. Nothing has caused Berlusconi to seriously doubt his own powers since voters elected him to a third term in 2008.

But Wednesday's ruling by the Italian Constitutional Court is more titillating than any sex scandal.

The supreme guardians of the judiciary have now declared that a law that grants Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office is unconstitutional. The decision is politically dangerous as it could let the country slip into a debilitating conflict among the various branches of government and the country's institutions.

The only certain piece of good news so far is the following: Italy is not actually the kind of regime that many had suspected it had become. The majority of Constitutional Court judges did not let themselves be intimidated, despite massive pressure and public vilification. They have overthrown one of the core projects of the Berlusconi government, namely the Lodo Alfano law which suspends any ongoing criminal proceedings against the top four state representatives.

Naturally most EU states have a law that grants immunity to those in the highest political offices, sometimes more (as in France) and sometimes less (as in Britain). An elected government should govern and not have to deal with court cases. That is normal.

But Silvio Berlusconi is not a normal European politician. German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not own, in addition to her small house in Brandenburg, the German private broadcasters RTL and Vox, the soccer team FC Bayern Munich and the Axel Springer publishing house. Similarly, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has never, as far as we know, bribed a judge so that he can acquire a majority stake in the publisher Condé Nast.