Italian justice has sentenced Minister for Regions and Autonomies Roberto Calderoli of the far-right League party to seven months in prison for racist slurs against Cécile Chiengue, Italy’s first minister of African descent.
A court in Bergamo upheld on Thursday an aggravated racial defamation conviction against Cécile Kiengue after Roberto Calderoli, in 2013, when he was vice president of the Italian Senate, compared the then minister to an orangutan during a rally at his party in Treviglio. in northern Italy.
Italian justice has already condemned the now minister in the second instance, but the judges have canceled the previous sentences.
However, the Italian Constitutional Court has ruled that Roberto Calderoli cannot enjoy the constitutional protection of parliamentary immunity, despite authorities saying that the senator’s views were “expressed by the deputy in office” and therefore “indisputable”.
According to the Constitution, opinions expressed outside the specific exercise of parliamentary functions are subject to immunity only if their purpose is to promote parliamentary activity, so the prerogative “cannot extend to insults.”
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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