'Berlusconi rescue' Bill causes uproar among Italian MPs

The Italian parliament voted yesterday to pass a new justice Bill, despite protests from critics who say it is tailor-made to rescue the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, from corruption charges.

Mayhem broke out in the lower house of the Parliament after the passage of the Bill.

Members of the opposition screamed abuse and tussled with the majority as the vote went in favour of Mr Berlusconi's centre-right coalition. Live parliamentary coverage was cut off.

Fighting also broke out within government ranks, with rival members of Mr Berlusconi's House of Freedom coalition fighting in the corridors outside the main chamber.

Deputies from the centrist UDC and rightist National Alliance parties had to be separated by parliamentary aides after a National Alliance deputy inadvertently insulted the UDC during closing arguments. "You're fascists and you've always been fascists," UDC members shouted.

The controversial Bill allows defendants who have a "legitimate suspicion" that judges are biased against them to have their court cases suspended and even restarted elsewhere.

Its powers will be retroactive, prompting criticism that it will further burden an already backlogged judicial system.

But the most heated claim is that the law was expressly designed to aid Mr Berlusconi and his former defence minister and lawyer, Cesare Previti, whose trial on allegations of bribing a judge to negotiate the purchase of SME, a food company, would be directly affected. Both Mr Berlusconi and Mr Previti deny the bribery charges, which date back to the mid-1980s.

The defence has already asked Italy's constitutional court to rule on whether the case can be moved away from Milan, on the ground that the judges there lean politically to the left ­ away from Mr Berlusconi's government ­ and are pursuing a political vendetta against him.

The "Tangentopoli" or "Bribesville" scandal, which toppled a generation of politicians on corruption charges a decade ago, was played out in the Milan courts.

The legislation can be applied to the Milan case. Should Mr Berlusconi's court case have to be restarted, charges would probably expire under Italy's rules on the statute of limitation, which disqualify a case after a set amount of time has elapsed.

Mr Berlusconi insists that his government is simply reinstating an old piece of legislation that gives the right to impartial judgment.

Opposition politicians tried to scupper the Bill with a deluge of amendments, and walked out of parliament wearing blindfolds when it was first heard.

It has brought Italians on to the streets with protests held outside the parliament. At a recent anti-government rally, which drew hundreds of thousands of protesters, many listed it as a primary complaint.

On Wednesday, Mr Berlusconi met the Italian President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who was also thought to have voiced his concerns about the Bill.