Italy of Values (IDV) opposition party leader and ex-graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro on Wednesday lodged an official request for a public referendum on whether a law giving Premier Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution should be repealed.
The so-called Alfano Law - after Justice Minister Angelino Alfano - gives immunity to Italy's top four institutional figures (the president, the premier and the two parliamentary speakers) while in office.
Di Pietro and other opposition politicians claimed the law was tailor-made to help Berlusconi escape from two ongoing corruption trials, but the government says the measure brings Italy in line with other European countries.
The IDV leader said Wednesday that his party would now set about collecting the 500,000 signatures required to call a referendum on the law, which was passed by parliament last week.
''The countdown begins today - we are going to ask citizens what they think about the immunity law that Berlusconi passed to avoid trial,'' Di Pietro said.
''We need to know if Berlusconi is a scoundrel or if he is a decent person, and we need to know now - not after he has governed,'' he added.
''We'll have the citizens' response in three months,'' he said, referring to how long it will take to collect the signatures.
Under the new law, two ongoing cases against Berlusconi are now frozen.
In one trial, the prime minister is accused of paying British corporate lawyer David Mills a $600,000 bribe to hush up incriminating evidence in earlier trials.
In a second, Berlusconi and 11 other defendants stand accused of fraud over film rights relating to Berlusconi's private TV network company Mediaset.
The premier and all other defendants deny wrongdoing.
