SHOCK, HORROR – corruption is on the increase in Italy and this is official. Speaking this week at the formal opening of the the state court of auditors, chief prosecutor Mario Ristuccia said corruption in the Italian public sector increased by more than 30 per cent in 2010.

Addressing a gathering that included state president Giorgio Napolitano, senate speaker Renato Shifani and minister for justice Angelino Alfano, Ristuccia outlined a bleak but hardly surprising scenario.

Based on statistics supplied by the carabinieri, the finance police and the forestry guards, he stated that 237 corruption cases were reported in 2010, while the court issued 350 convictions which represented approximately €250 million worth of damages to Italy’s public sector.

It’s no surprise that one of the areas hardest hit by corruption is the national health service, which figured in €60 million worth of convictions in 2010. Last year the police made 1,090 charges of “abuse of office” against public servants. Ristuccia had some hardly encouraging words for the future. He pointed an accusatory finger at two measures that Silvio Berlusconi’s government is about to propose in parliament – a “gag law” that would greatly restrict the use of wire-taps in investigations and a “brief trial” law, which would shorten the time span before the statute of limitations becomes applicable.

Wire-taps, he concluded, are fundamental to judicial investigations while an over-indulgent statute of limitations runs contrary to the principles of natural justice.

The haste with which the Berlusconi government wishes to introduce these and other measures contrasts starkly with the 12-year-long failure of various Italian governments to ratify the European Council’s August 1999 Civil Law Convention On Corruption. It’s hardly surprising Transparency International last year ranked Italy 67th in world corruption rankings, just below Rwanda.