Berlusconi loses legal immunity

Italy's billionaire right-wing dictator Silvio Berlusconi embodies the essence of today's Far Right.

Berlusconi deregulates Big Business but uses "virtue campaigns" to regiment personal behavior. He also censored journalists who planned to publish embarrassing photos taken at a lavish New Year's Eve party he threw for his friends. The Berlusconi regime ordered the photos to be seized by authorities.

But now Berlusconi's power may be crumbling.

Berlusconi's regime enacted a law giving him immunity from prosecution as long as he's in office. This law let him withdraw from several important cases, including one in which he was accused of bribing a lawyer to give false evidence.

But now Italy's highest court has annulled this statute, because it violated the constitutional guarantee of citizens being equal before the law.

What does Silvio Berlusconi say about this? His spokesman cried that the court's ruling is "politically motivated."

He thinks expecting politicians to not be above the law is "politically motivated"?

Now that foreign dictators are expected to obey the law like everyone else, hopefully retroactive immunity can be revoked from telcom companies in America that conspired with the Bush regime to spy on American citizens.

(Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8295716.stm;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053000537.htm)