156 Letter from Rome A State of Embarrassment Conor Deane Claretta Petacci, Benito Mussolini’s last mistress, once remarked: ‘It is not hard to govern Italians; it’s pointless.’ It is a widely-held belief that the current suppression of the free press, and the ascent Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, of the Fascists (the National Alliance) and is determined to make a fresh attempt at rabid xenophobes (the Northern League). this pointless task, but this is not true. The western press is practically unanimous in its censure of Berlusconi, who dislikes Berlusconi leads a coalition made up of his them in return. He has a particularly bad own political party, Forza Italia, the anti- relationship with that flagship of liberal immigrant Northern League and the dogma, The Economist. National Alliance, a party that, in its original configuration as the Movimento Yet the belief that Berlusconi is trying to Sociale Italiano (MSI), had been excluded establish repressive government is from power throughout the post-War period misplaced. On the contrary, he is hardly for its continued espousal of Fascism. Under interested in governing Italy at all. In this he the new and more moderate leadership of differs quite markedly from his late political Gianfranco Fini, the National Alliance has mentor, Bettino Craxi, who made a forceful tasted power for the first time with and memorable attempt to do so, and Berlusconi. It is certainly not a coalition managed to stay in office for a remarkably of the tolerant, but this does not make long time (from August 1983 to April 1987, it autocratic. with a brief hiatus in 1986). Craxi did not suffer Mussolini’s (or Claretta Petacci’s) fate Since returning to power in 2001, and end up hanging from a lamppost in Berlusconi has pushed through several bills Milan, but he was hounded out of office that legalize the graft that he and his and then out of the country to die in exile. business associates have committed, or else Why should this have happened? After all, that transform what had been criminal his partners in crime and government stayed offences into technical misdemeanours. In behind and weathered the storm. His December 2003, he attempted to enact a cabinet colleague Giulio Andreotti, seven wide-ranging bill that is so blatantly times Prime Minister, has become a favourable to his own extensive media respected elder statesman. Craxi’s protégé, interests that President Carlo Azeglio Berlusconi, was elected to office by the same Ciampi, who usually avoids controversy, Italian public whose outrage at the refused to ratify it. Berlusconi has also corruption that Craxi represented had Silvio Berlusconi with devoted a lot of energy to excluding critics seemed so implacable. If Craxi had simply Cherie and Tony Blair, from the state broadcasting company, looked after his own interests instead of also Sardinia, August 2004. Photograph: Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). Foreign trying to govern, he might not have become Associated Press journalists are flabbergasted at the such a hate figure. FIELD DAY REVIEW 1 2005 157 FIELD DAY REVIEW In conducting a campaign to diminish the than he did on the cruise ships. After the powers of the judiciary and rival media Italian presidency came to an ignominious organizations, Berlusconi is not showing end in December 2003, Berlusconi vanished dictatorial tendencies. He is merely fulfilling for a month and came back with tighter his own personal and professional skin and darker hair. When Tony and ambitions. The RAI is the only serious Cherie Blair chose to spend their summer competitor to Berlusconi’s Mediaset group, holidays in 2004 in Berlusconi’s Sardinian and it would therefore be very surprising villa, built in defiance of planning law, their were he to treat it fairly. Similarly, in host appeared with a white bandana on his seeking to undermine the judiciary, head. The purpose of the bandana was to Berlusconi is acting in a perfectly coherent cover the scars resulting from a hair manner. What businessman would not take transplant. the opportunity to legalize white-collar crime and legislate to destroy prosecution Berlusconi does not want to be booed off cases against himself, his business associates stage like his friend Craxi. Apart from his and company? Legalizing bribery and businesslike approach to defending his corruption is not unheard-of either; in the corporate interests, he is genuinely and US it has been institutionalized under the personally offended at the accusations name of lobbying. What with all the energy lodged against him. His offensive against that he is expending on saving himself from the judiciary, one of the powers in Italy that the courts, running his companies and holds the executive in check, invites two generally dodging the raindrops, Berlusconi plausible interpretations. It may be deeply has little time left to work on becoming the sinister that Berlusconi should be making next Mussolini. such enormous legislative efforts to ensure that top office-holders such as, well, the Berlusconi’s interest in subverting the media Prime Minister, should be doubly immune and the judiciary has another cause: he from prosecution; or it may simply be that really wants people to like him. This claim he is reacting to a sudden burst of bad may invite scepticism from those who are manners from the magistrates who started suspicious of psychological profiling to to throw things at him while he was explain political action but, in Berlusconi’s entertaining. From this perspective, case, it is more akin to a job description. Berlusconi is not so much gagging the His first profession was that of an judiciary as silencing a bunch of hecklers. entertainer. He started out as a crooner on If his audience has anything to say, they cruise ships, with the current CEO of the should have the decency to wait till he has Mediaset empire, Fedele Confalonieri, finished his gig. playing piano. When delivering a political speech, Berlusconi still adopts the position This is not just a flippant use of the of a Sinatra-era singer: left hand clasping metaphor of spectacle, because the belief the microphone at chest-level, right arm that politics is spectacle is held by many stretched out in a histrionic gesture of Italians, the magistrates included. Although feeling. At the end of 2003, Mario Apicella, they loftily deny political motivation, Italian a Neapolitan singer, released a new CD with magistrates belong to institutionalized fourteen new songs written by Berlusconi. political movements, and judicial To mark the Italian presidency of the appointments are made on the basis of European Union, Berlusconi had an album ideological affiliation. of his favourite Italian songs compiled and delivered to all the mayors in the country. On 12 November 2004, Ilda Boccasini, a Indeed, he now looks more like a crooner prosecutor whose career as an anti-Mafia 158 LETTER FROM ROME magistrate earned her a reputation for examines the case. If the defendant is found fearlessness and ferocity, called for an eight- guilty again, s/he may appeal to the year prison sentence for Berlusconi. She Supreme Court. Often, it takes so long for made her demand in the course of the the Supreme Court to get around to hearing closing of the prosecution case in the ‘SME the case that the statute of limitations may Trial’, which began in May 2003. Very have annulled the original offence as in the briefly, the prosecution case is that in 1985 ‘SME Trial’ that ended in December 2004. Berlusconi and his lawyer friend, Cesare The trick is not to be remanded in custody Previti, who is also a Forza Italia MP and a during the lengthy interval between former minister, bribed a judge, Renato conviction and appeal. The Scots have the Squillante, to block the take-over of SME, a verdict of ‘not proven’, but Italians have a state-sector food company, by a rival far more nuanced version. A conviction by a businessman. One of the lines of defence court of first instance makes the defendant used by Berlusconi, co-defendant with sort-of-guilty but not quite. It depends. If Previti and seven others, was that this was a the defendant is appealing, in both senses of ‘victimless’ crime (he noted, for example, the word, then terms such as ‘guilty’ and that no guns were used). Boccasini, ‘convicted’ are considered to be in bad taste. however, argued that Berlusconi’s actions It becomes possible to speak of guilt only since the time of the offence (amongst which when the appeals process has been she included lying to the Italian public and thoroughly exhausted. becoming Prime Minister) did not give her any reason to mitigate the standard sentence Berlusconi’s war with the courts certainly for the corruption of a public official. raises serious issues of judicial independence. When he claims the judiciary Berlusconi’s defence team and political allies is politicized, the Italian public recognizes were shocked and incredulous. The this is essentially true. But this does not recurrent theme of the accusations mean that the system is corrupt. In the Boccasini’s proposed sentence provoked in Anglo-American system judges have the government circles was the political bias of power to interpret laws with reference to the judiciary. The only person who took it individual cases; thus, there is no need in calmly, with the weary resignation of the that system for a separate body to enforce perpetually persecuted, was Berlusconi the law of equity. Under the common-law himself. He endures through this difficult system, judges are responsible for the time with the help of his friends and of his decisions that create equity, and if this is to immunity from prosecution.