Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will again evade prosecution over corruption charges after Italy’s parliament passed a new law allowing him to claim that he is too busy to attend court.
The new law allows Berlusconi to avoid court to attend to a “legitimate” political engagement.
In the past, the Italian prime minister has argued that a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a part of a new motorway was a valid excuse for not turning up to court.
Opposition MPs held up copies of the Italian constitution accusing him of making a mockery of the principle that all citizens are equal before the law.
Berlusconi’s lawyers are expected to use the new law later this month, when a case resumes in which he is accused of paying his lawyer a $600,000 bribe in exchange for providing false testimony in two trials in the 90s.
