‘Let rationality prevail’

Italy’s Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to four years in jail for tax fraud on August 1, rejecting his appeal against the verdict of the two lower courts on the Mediaset case. The sentence will be commuted under an amnesty for minor offences committed before 2006 to one year to be served through community service or house arrest. The judges also ordered that the earlier decision to ban Berlusconi from public office for five years should be reviewed by a Milan court.

For “Berlusconi, the conviction is final”, headlines La Repubblica. For the daily, this sentence shows that "the civil law and the separation of powers are still in force in Italy" and it confirms the "everyone is really equal in front of the law”. In an editorial entitled "The consequences of the truth", the newspaper’s editor-in-chief argues that –

To arrive to this result - get full justice - it took 10 years of investigation, six years of trial with the route repeatedly blocked by judiciary 'monsters' created by premier Berlusconi’s own hands to help the prosecuted Berlusconi, undermining the code and the procedures and to form new ones in his own image and likeness.

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In a video message released soon after the sentence, Il Cavaliere proclaims his innocence, attacks the judiciary and assures the public he will not retreat from politics but will instead reform his original political party, Forza Italia. Berlusconi’s attack is supported by his family’s newspaper, Il Giornale, which headlines that “Berlusconi, it is not over”. In a video editorial, editor Alessandro Sallusti says that

The problem is political, the problem is that the judiciary wanted to eliminate the leader of the main Italian political party. [...] We are witnessing a political sentence, of a political murder, that doesn’t concern only Silvio Berlusconi, but all those millions of Italians who have supported Berlusconi and the PdL for many years and don’t want to hand the country over to the Left.

“Berlusconi condemned: but remains in the game”, headlines Il Corriere della Sera. In the newspaper argues that –

Berlusconi's sentence cannot be considered a 'private' matter. It is on the contrary a public and political fact at top levels. It will certainly produce political consequences. For instance it will force the PdL to face the reality of its crippled leadership. […] The government's destiny is uncertain. The only way to dampen the deadly blow suffered by the Italian political system would be to follow the invitation of the head of State and to accept the reality, to trace a line in the sand, turn the page and start again.

What should be avoided now is that the country pays the bill, writes La Stampa, under the headline: “Berlusconi condemned: I don’t leave”. The newspaper notes in its editorial that for once Italians should let “rationality prevail” and ask themselves if –

we can try to get out of the crisis into which we have sunk or if we should embark on a new season of shouting, blood-letting, and electoral campaigning. […] The Court of Cassation put end, it always does, to a series of judicial twists and turns. And it certainly doesn't have to be the beginning of our end.