09 February, 2008

Italian News Justice Special

A 34-year-old butcher from Vicenza has got away with a commuted prison sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old girl after judges decided the pair were ''in love''.

The Italian age of consent is 14, or 13 if there is less than a three-year age gap between the two people involved.

Two septuagenarian agricultural labourers from Puglia, who are suing the Social Security Service for pension rights, have been given a hearing date of 27th February 2020. This would imply a ruling between 2025 and 2030 and a lodging of the decision in 2035 assuming there were no delays. On appeal the hearing was brought forward to 2013.

In Rome you can register a complaint that you have been waiting too long for justice, but the registration takes two years

200,000 cases a year expire due to the statute of limitations.

58% of prison inmates are still awaiting sentence.

A civil case takes an average of eight years. A divorce takes 7 ½ years.

Less than 5% of fines are collected

A judge forgot about an immigrant held in jail for 15 months but got off with a warning because it was his first time.

3,612 preliminary investigations to ascertain judges’ liability in 3,612 cases of compensation for protracted trials have ended with 3,612 acquittals.

Failure to update the system (it is done by hand) enabled one woman of no fixed abode to be detained 122 times in various towns for theft and mugging, and sentenced to segments of six to nine months on each occasion, racking up a theoretical total of over 50 years imprisonment without spending a single day in jail.

In Campobasso district €138,000 are allocated for the expenses of the courts; €1 million are allocated to compensate people for the delays.

In other news,

American Democrats living in Italy and Italians with dual nationality were able to vote in the 'Super Tuesday' primaries thanks to polling stations set up in Milan, Florence, Rome and Bologna. Italy's minister for sports and youth policy, Giovanna Melandri, has dual nationality and voted for Sen. Obama

Tuscans produce the most rubbish in Italy, 700kg per person per year, 24% more than the average.

Malpensa airport, which describes itself as Milan (it is 45 minutes away by train) is suing the bankrupt Alitalia for €1.25 billion for having cut 180 fights a day from its schedules.

Omar Bin Laden, 27 year old son of the more famous Osama, was seen on a shopping trip in Rome with his 52 year old British wife Jane Felix Browne, both dressed in black leather. He says he wants to meet the pope.

Italy has the highest total in the European Union of deaths at the workplace.

18% of Italian children are born outside wedlock. The figure for France and Sweden is over 50%

Life expectancy in Italy is 78.6 years for a man and 84 years for a woman. Men live an average of a year longer in Umbria (most of it spent queuing at the Post Office). 30% of Italians are over 65 compared to a European average of 25%

Perugia celebrates the 550th anniversary of the birth of Renaissance artist Pinturicchio. The local boy, described as ''small, deaf and not much of a looker'' by a contemporary writer, overcame his misfortunes to become a favourite of dissolute Borgia pope Alexander VI and worked on the Sistine Chapel.

Silvio Berlusconi will lead ‘People of Freedom’, an alliance of Forza Italia and the Allianza Nazionale, into the elections. He is the world’s 52nd richest man, a tribute to what you can achieve despite being small, deaf and not much of a looker.

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