Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-04-Speech-1-068"
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"en.20050704.15.1-068"2
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"Mr President, we are dealing here with four cases referred to us by the Italian authorities concerning the immunity of Mr Umberto Bossi and whether this House should lift that immunity or not. The Committee on Legal Affairs has considered these four cases over a long period of time and is now in a position to make recommendations to the House. Parliamentary immunity is of course a matter for this Parliament, it is not for us as Members. It is to protect the institution as we carry out its proper work and it is therefore a very serious matter. With regard to Mr Bossi’s cases, I will approach them separately with reference to the name of the court from which they have been referred.
First of all, there is one case which I think provided us with very little difficulty or discussion. That is referred from the Milan court. It refers to an incident where Mr Bossi actually used physical violence. In that particular instance, we felt, as a committee, that this was not a proper instance for us to be, as it were, protecting immunity. If a Member uses force or violence, then that is not something that is a proper carrying-out of the duties of this House and therefore we were unanimous that the immunity should be lifted in that case.
There then follow two other cases which are perhaps more difficult and more complicated to get to grips with. They are referred respectively from the courts of Brescia and Bergamo. Both these instances refer to speeches made by Mr Bossi on various occasions but speeches where, on one interpretation, he appears to be using inflammatory language which could be encouraging other citizens to act in a way that perhaps would not be appropriate. Clearly, this House would wish to protect the freedom of expression of its Members when they are carrying out their duties and their right to speak freely as politicians, and in this respect we have to consider Rule 9 of our Rules of Procedure. However, this must be viewed against the background of the fact that in both these cases, the Italian authorities – the parliamentary authorities – had come to the conclusion that in Italian terms Mr Bossi’s immunity should be waived. However, the Legal Affairs Committee felt, taking everything into account, that it was right in these two cases to maintain Mr Bossi’s immunity. These were rather difficult cases for us to consider, but that was the final recommendation of the committee. All three cases involved prosecutions by the Italian authorities.
The fourth case, on the face of it, again seemed to be straightforward. This involved civil proceedings between Mr Bossi and another Italian politician. It appeared to be presented to us on the basis that it was the other politician who was taking proceedings against Mr Bossi on the basis of words that he had spoken. On that basis, we were prepared to accept that the immunity should be maintained.
It was, however, pointed out to me over the weekend that in fact Mr Bossi was the plaintiff in this action and the action was introduced by the other party as a counterclaim. I have a concern that in this instance, therefore, Mr Bossi does not come to us, as we would say under English law, with clean hands. The result of the committee vote was that we should maintain the immunity, but perhaps, we should bear in mind the type of litigation here, where it appears that the plaintiff himself is trying to use the immunity of this House in a manner which may be questionable."@en1
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