THE TELEGAPH: Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers said he should be considered above the law, as Italy's highest court deliberated on whether legislation giving him immunity from prosecution is unconstitutional.
Mr Berlusconi's duties as prime minister distinguished him from ordinary Italians, his legal team insisted, using a justification which opposition politicians branded "Orwellian".
"The prime minister ... should be considered the 'first above equals'," said one of his lawyers, Gaetano Pecorella, putting a new twist on the more familiar Latin term primus inter pares, or "first among equals".
Mr Berlusconi, 73, has repeatedly complained of being unfairly hounded by "Left-wing" magistrates who he claims have waged a politically motivated campaign against him since he first entered politics 15 years ago.
An opposition MP, Massimo Donadi, of the Italy of Values party, said the argument recalled George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, in which the power-corrupted pigs asserted that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Tuesday, October 06, 2009
