berlusconi, gets 7 years, page-6

"how can the element of beyond reasonable doubt be concluded"


Simple Dui, the Italian's have a different legal system.

It is a mix between the adversarial and inquisitional. My understanding is that there is more pressure on the defendant to prove their innocence, rather than for the prosecution to prove guilt. I believe this is common across European countries, as opposed to our British based system where the onus is on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The Italian courts have no laws against lying on the stand, nor do they have a system of juries, although there can be multiple judges on the same case. Most Italian trials go for several years. Importantly, "For a defendant to be convicted, the Judge must be internally convinced (Italian law requires the Judge's intimo convincimento); because of that, there are no rules that predetermine the weight to be attributed to any given piece of evidence, so even credible admissions [of guilt] can do no more than reduce the amount of extrinsic evidence necessary for a finding of guilt."

Seems like plenty of avenues for corruption within their system.

In Berlusconi's case it doesn't take much to realize, given that he came close to regaining political power recently, who is most likely involved in getting rid of him permanently from the political scene.

Berlusconi had pending criminal/corruption cases against him in the past which were put on hold due to the fact that politicians in Italy are exempt from legal actions against them until they have lost power. Berlusconi may well have concurrent cases against him, along with the one he has just been sentenced for.