Bravo, Italy!

For those as worried as I was about two most recent reasons to be so, I am happy to eat my words today.

Firstly, the regional court of Lazio (TAR) "overturned... a controversial ban on political talk shows... for commercial TV Friday." I don't want to celebrate this as great, as much as be temporarily content that there are, in fact, branches of the government working to do what is right. The ban would have been a blatant restriction on the freedoms of speech and press, and is going where it belongs -- the trash can.

Secondly, the TAR (my respect for Italian judges has gone through the roof) did not allow the Berlusconi government to essentially change the law so that their party could run in an election it shouldn't have. Berlusconi's PdL issued decree as a means of letting the candidate for governor of Lombardy to run, despite the fact that he did not meet the requirements to be a candidate (not in Lazio, however, where a similar mistake was made, and made me worried in the last post).

Berlusconi predictably resorted to insults and name-calling, but the point was made: the law is the same for everyone.

Bravo!