Statutory Term Strategy
After 1994, the danger of trials being cancelled due to the expiration of statutory terms was becoming very real. This was clear to the judges and to the politicians, and the latter ones (with no distinction between Berlusconi's coalition and the Olive Tree, especially under the leadership of Massimo D'Alema) either ignored the pleas of the judiciary system for more funding to buy equipment, or passed laws that made the painstakingly slow Italian trials even slower and subject to earlier prescription.
Furthermore, the intricate nature of Italian laws allowed cunning lawyers to use many delaying tactics: an instructive example was a prosecution of Silvio Berlusconi, where he was accused of misappropriation of funds of his own company, Fininvest, in order to prepare black funds that could have been used for bribes or other illegitimate purposes; on the last possible day, a lawyer from Fininvest appeared in court and complained that his company had not been formally notified of the trial. While this trial was well publicized in the media (and also in Fininvest's media themselves), the formality forced the trial to be restarted from scratch, and Berlusconi was finally acquitted by expiration of statutory terms. Being acquitted in this first trial, he could later benefit from a general reduction of terms for other trials, which in turn expired earlier with a domino effect.
After Silvio Berlusconi's victory in 2001, the gradual campaign against judges reached the point where it is not only openly acceptable to criticize judges for having carried out Mani pulite, but it has become increasingly difficult to broadcast opinions favorable to Milan's pool. This is an impressive 180° cultural turn from 1992, when no politician was believed and no judge was contested, in which the Berlusconi's power in media has undoubtedly played an important role. Even Umberto Bossi, whose Lega Nord once made a statement bringing and showing a hanging rope in a parliamentary session, has become highly critical of judges, even though there are still occasional frictions between Lega Nord and former Christian Democrat or Socialist allies in Berlusconi's coalition.
Read more about this topic: Mani Pulite
Famous quotes containing the words term and/or strategy:
“A radical is one of whom people say “He goes too far.” A conservative, on the other hand, is one who “doesn’t go far enough.” Then there is the reactionary, “one who doesn’t go at all.” All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term “progressive.” I should say that a progressive is one who insists upon recognizing new facts as they present themselves—one who adjusts legislation to these new facts.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)