Immunizing Berlusconi

GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP-GETTY IMAGES

Berlusconi is off the hook — for now

When the lower house of the Italian legislature passed an immunity bill last week to shelve Silvio Berlusconi's corruption trial, the Prime Minister finally got what he'd been after for two years — a way to escape the judicial hot seat for as long as he's in office. Berlusconi's center-right majority secured immunity from prosecution for Italy's five highest office holders.

The bill resembles other immunity laws in Europe, but critics say it was made to order for Berlusconi, the latest of several attempts to protect him from a possible guilty verdict in a Milan trial where...

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