SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Italy's prime minister, is ending his current term of office as he began it in the summer of 2001: with an assault on the judicial system. In one of its last acts before the election in April, the Italian parliament has passed a bill sponsored by Gaetano Pecorella, Mr Berlusconi's lawyer, who is also a deputy for his political party, Forza Italia. In July 2001 Mr Pecorella, who chairs the lower house's justice committee, also sponsored a law to downgrade the crime of false accounting, for which the prime minister was then on trial. That law shortened the statute of limitations after which charges are time-barred, a provision that directly benefited Mr Berlusconi.

The new bill would abolish the prosecution's right to appeal against acquittals by the court of first instance. By chance, a court in Milan is due to begin hearing just such an appeal, of a case in which Mr Berlusconi was acquitted on four charges of bribing judges. On one charge, the acquittal came because the crime was time-barred after extenuating circumstances had been granted; on two others, it came for lack of sufficient proof; on the fourth, it was because he had not committed the offence. But the prosecution appealed against all these verdicts, which were delivered in December 2004.

Cesare Previti, a Forza Italia senator and business colleague of Mr Berlusconi, might also benefit from the new bill. He has been found guilty in two cases of judicial corruption and faces a prison sentence should the verdicts be upheld. One of the cases, involving a company owned by Mr Berlusconi, was due to be decided by the supreme court this week, but the hearing was cancelled because of a lawyers' strike. Under the new bill, Mr Previti might be able to submit direct evidence to the supreme court, whose role is currently limited to ruling on points of law.