It's the day of truth for the new prescription. The Chamber today is trying to turn the page on the ex-Cirielli, the law from the Berlusconi era which, by shortening the terms of the statute of limitations, had conditioned the proceedings involving the leader of Forza Italia.
The text passed the first test and remains Article 1 of the bill. The Chamber of Deputies rejected the suppressive amendment to the text presented by the deputy Alessandro Pagano, group leader in the Popular Area Justice Commission, and two other amendments identical to this one.
There were 337 votes against, 40 in favor and 19 abstentions. The text concerns the increase of half the terms for crimes of corruption (articles 318, 319 and 319 ter of the penal code). Protests and tension by the NCD deputies who announce abstention on the final vote in the hall "waiting for what will happen in the Senate with the second reading".
"I reject the accusation of increasing, in an unreasonable way and without an overall plan, the times of the prescription, therefore of the trials", affirmed the Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando in the Chamber of Deputies. The only extension of time, provided for by the provision for crimes of corruption, "is due to the particular nature of those crimes: the choice - clarifies the minister - is due to the fact that the corruptive act often emerges much later than when it is committed ”, as “for environmental crimes, which objectively emerge much later. This is the choice at the basis of this text”, clarifies the Keeper of the Seals. The bill, for Orlando, "is a positive signal and not an element of lengthening the process", but "a tool with which the path of alternative rites is reinvigorated".
Starting tomorrow in the Senate, the process of the anti-corruption bill will begin in the Chamber, which increases the penalties bringing the minimum to 6 years and the maximum to ten for so-called personal corruption. The bill on the statute of limitations is in the first reading in Montecitorio and will then have to pass to the scrutiny of the Senate which, in turn, will send the bill on the fight against corruption to the Chamber. A shuttle, therefore, which could not exclude changes to the text on the limitation period in the light of the introduction of new maximum sentences.
The explanations of vote and the final vote on the reform of the prescription are scheduled for this afternoon, starting at 14,30.
