Defamation Suit by Italian Premier Is Rejected

by Ashley Rosenstein

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lost a defamation suit against the magazine The Economist over a 2001 cover story that accused him of being unfit to lead Italy, the magazine said on Friday.
A court in Milan, after rejecting the libel claims of Mr. Berlusconi, one of Italy’s richest men, ordered him to pay the magazine about $35,000 for legal costs.
The April 26, 2001, issue of The Economist featured a front-page photo of Mr. Berlusconi with the headline “Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy.” The accompanying article accused him of conflicts of interest, analyzed his business empire and detailed legal battles in which he was involved. The issue appeared right before parliamentary elections, which Mr. Berlusconi won.
The Economist’s article, Judge Angelo Ricciardi wrote in his decision, was completely “within the right to criticize, which is guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.”
...
Just before he narrowly lost a bid for re-election in 2006, the magazine published a cover story headlined “Basta, Berlusconi” (“Enough, Berlusconi”).
In July of this year, The Economist accused Mr. Berlusconi of using his third term as prime minister largely to pursue what it called his “personal and corporate interests.” That article had the headline “Berlusconi fiddles, Italy burns,” was accompanied by a caricature of him looking like the Roman emperor Nero, and said, “There is no hint of debate on the liberalizing measures that Italy’s hidebound economy badly needs.”


I think that this article is very interesting because it discusses the Prime Minister losing a defamation lawsuit that most people would expect him to win. As someone so high up in the economic chain, Berlusconi was expected to win this case. This article helped me find out about the Italian constitution when it said "was completely 'within the right to criticize, which is guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.'" Article 21, as I found on another website, states that: "everybody has the right to freely express his own thought through words, writing, and any other means...";