The first go-ahead for Silvio Berlusconi's dismissal from the position of parliamentarian arrives. The Senate Committee for Elections and Immunities met today in public session and the majority voted in favor of the provision pursuant to the Severino law.
Now it's the turn of the Hall of Palazzo Madama, which will have to express itself by 14 October. In case of new approval, the Knight will lose the office of senator and with it the parliamentary immunity.
The political forces presented themselves at the meeting strongly divided: the PDL uniting around its leader and arguing the non-applicability of the Severino law on the ineligibility of convicts, because at the time the crime was committed those rules were not yet in force; the center-left and the 5 Star Movement instead oriented towards a vote in favor of decadence.
Berlusconi's lawyers (Franco Coppi, Piero Longo and Niccolò Ghedini) did not appear at the public hearing, in protest at the alleged partiality of the judgement.
"It went worse than expected - commented the head of the PDL senators, Renato Schifani -, it was a sentence that had already been written, if the plot was known, but it went beyond any tolerable limit".
Meanwhile, controversies are flaring up over a message posted on Facebook by M5S senator Vito Crimi, who anticipated his vote and contained irreverent jokes about the Knight. The PDL took the pretext to ask Senate president Piero Grasso to stop the work, who communicated that he could not suspend the work of the Giunta. According to the regulation, in fact, it could not even communicate with its members in order not to violate the obligation of secrecy.
The possibility of interrupting the works is envisaged “only for reasons of force majeure or in the event of war – clarified the president of the Giunta, Dario Stefàno -. Furthermore, the explanations that Crimi gave me seemed sufficient, even if I wanted to remind all the commissioners to avoid incurring accidents during the council session”.
