Italy’s statute of limitations saves Silvio Berlusconi’s former lawyer from going to prison

ITALIAN courts may be slow. But no one could claim that they were arbitrary. Defendants get the right to a trial (sometimes after a pre-trial), and then up to two appeals: one on the merits of the case, and another on points of law. Often, the result is that a case will be timed out by a statute of limitations before it can run that long course.

On Thursday February 25th, Italy’s highest appeal court decided that that is what had happened in the politically explosive trial of David Mills, a British lawyer who once advised Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, on offshore finance. Mr Mills had been convicted by a lower court of having taken a $600,000 bribe, allegedly supplied by Mr Berlusconi, for holding back evidence at two trials involving the prime minister in the 1990s. …