Europees Hof van Justitie doet geen uitspraak over Berlusconi (en)

The European Union's top court has ruled in favour of Silvio Berlusconi, saying an EU law could not overrule a national law allowing a trial against the Italian prime minister to be suspended.

Mr Berlusconi was facing criminal charges for alleged breach of the provisions governing false information on companies related to SME, a former state-owned Italian food company.

But the trail was suspended on 26 October 2002 after Mr Berlusconi's majority in the Italian parliament voted in a new law making it more difficult to prosecute such crimes.

The new law set a significantly shorter limitation period - four and a half years instead of seven and a half years maximum.

Prosecutors in Milan then turned to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and asked for it to rule against the new Italian law.

The Milan prosecutors claimed that Mr Berlusconi's new law ran counter to the 37-year old First Companies Directive, which obliges member states to ensure that penalties are appropriate to the crime.

But the EU court on Tuesday (3 May) turned down the Milan prosecutors' claim.

"If the Italian courts were to conclude that the new national provisions are incompatible with the requirement that penalties be appropriate, they would, on the basis of the Court's case law, be obligated to set those provisions aside under their own authority", the Court in Luxembourg said.

The EU court also said that the old EU directive could not be applied directly to individuals.

"According to the Court's consistent case-law, a directive (such as the First Companies Directive) cannot, in itself, impose obligations on an individual and cannot therefore be relied on as such against that individual".

"After the European court's decision, we ask the magistrates to go back to concentrating on their jobs only, and to leave politics to other people," said Piergiorgio Stiffoni, a senator for the Northern League, according to the Financial Times.

Former anti-corruption prosecutor in Italy, Antonio Di Pietro, said the EU court's ruling did not change the point that Mr Berlusconi's government had passed a law partly with the aim of protecting himself from prosecution.