Much of Berlusconi's political career has been plagued by a litany of legal battles. A native of Milan, he has frequently complained of being victimised by its legal authorities. He denied embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge.
On numerous occasions he was acquitted, had convictions overturned or watched them expire under a statute of limitations. But he received a setback when in the Constitutional Court struck down part of a law granting him and other senior ministers temporary immunity.
By the end of the year he was out of power, and in October he was given four years for tax fraud and barred from public office. Berlusconi declared his innocence and spoke of a "judicial coup". Because he was over 75, he was handed community service, working four hours a week with elderly dementia patients at a Catholic care home near Milan.
Berlusconi's struggles in the political arena and the courtroom have been accompanied by a string of lascivious reports about his private life. He met second wife Veronica Lario after she performed topless in a play. When he was photographed at the 18th birthday party of aspiring model Noemi Letizia, his wife decided to divorce him.
But his reputation was tarnished most by allegations of raunchy "bunga-bunga" parties at his private villa attended by showgirls. The reports culminated in a conviction of paying for sex with an underage prostitute. In October , it emerged that Berlusconi had called a police station asking for the release of a year-old girl, Karima "Ruby" El Mahroug.
She was being held for theft and was also said to have attended his "bunga-bunga" parties. In June he was found guilty of paying her for sex, and of abuse of power.
How can Berlusconi survive something like this? There are several reasons, legal, political, and cultural. This is the third major case this year in which Berlusconi has been convicted.
In some ways, the first of the three convictions was the most troubling. As it happened, Fassino was never found to have played a particular role in that takeover, and judges ruled that his taped comment had no relevance to any criminal proceeding. But the tape was an extraordinary gift. Search the FT Search. World Show more World.
US Show more US. Companies Show more Companies. Markets Show more Markets. Opinion Show more Opinion. Yet the last ten days had been a turning point for Salvini with several wins. But what shocked Italians was the crushing defeat of the Five Star Movement coming in with a meagre Meanwhile the leftist opposition party, the PD, is practically out of the picture in Abruzzo with only Admittedly, the Abruzzo is a very small region population 1.
But then something else went right for him this week. A full chamber vote is to follow within a month and everyone expects it will go the same way.
Diciotti is the name of an Italian coast guard ship that saved migrants, including many unaccompanied children,pregnant women and sick people in need of medical care. Disallowing his own Minister of Transport who had let the ship to dock in an Italian port, Salvini reversed the order, thus going against the Italian Constitution, the European Court of Human Rights, international maritime law and elementary Christian charity.
For five days, the migrants were blocked on board in dramatic conditions no medical assistance, suffocating summer heat while Salvini tried to obtain from EU member countries assurances that they would take them in. Salvini is essentially free now to focus on other matters at hand: Get approval to finish the massive infrastructure construction of TAV, the high-speed train linking Lyon France to Turin Northern Italy through the Alps; and to obtain increased administrative autonomy for Northern Italy.
Autonomy for Northern Italy is a demand from the historic base of his party and he cannot ignore it: Northern Italians are sick and tired of paying taxes that go to support Southern Italians. They want to break off from Rome. The Lega is still the Lega Nord at heart. These are the points of contention between the two partners and it is difficult to see how they could ever come to an agreement.
But principles in the 5 Star Movement are wavering these days. Our members decide and we carry on that line. This is not democracy.
But then Di Maio is a clueless young man 32 years old who has never studied History or Law and has no experience of government. Besides, Rousseau is merely an online platform — and hence relatively insecure and opened to hacking — and it is far from representing the will of the people: Compared to the 11 million people who voted the Five Star Movement last March, the numbers voting on it are absurdly small: 52, voted on the platform in the web poll on Salvini.
A digital platform on which only a limited number expresses an opinion — and moreover an opinion on a complex judicial question that requires expert knowledge — cannot, by definition, be democratic or just.
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