I didn’t get a chance to blog about the decision of the Italian Constitutional Court to invalidate the bill guaranteeing Berlusconi immunity from trial. The court ruled that any such immunity would require a constitutional amendment.

Now, Berlusconi might have already got what he wanted. The immunity bill stalled existing trials, and now they’d have to run pretty fast to finish before the statute of limitations kicks in. But if he wants to be on the safe side, he’d better amend the constitution.

Problem is, that’s quite difficult. Constitutional amendments can be passed by a majority of both houses after two readings, but it only needs a very small minority in the Parliament to put the amendment to a referendum. And if a referendum were held solely on the issue of immunity, I don’t think even Berlusconi could pull of a victory.

So the strategy seems to be to wrap a whole load of institutional reforms into a much larger constitutional amendment, involving some kind of direct election of the head of government, get that approved by the Parliament lickety-split, and then go to the people arguing that the constitutional reforms are necessary for better governance.

That’s easier, but not much easier. The centre-right tried constitutional reform before, in 2005, but the provisions in federalism were unpopular in the south, and the reform was voted down. If Bossi can be muzzled, and if the provisions on what Berlusconi calls “presidentialism” are remotely sane (and they might not be), then the reform might go ahead. But I doubt it.