Policies of Silvio Berlusconi and peddling. Another was a penal code reform forbidding prosecutors to appeal against acquittals (defendants could still appeal, though). This law was not signed by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, but eventually went through both houses of parliament again, forcing the head of state to sign it. The law was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, since the constitution of Italy provides for equal rights for prosecutors and defendants. Policies of Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi was the Prime Minister of Italy, the head of the country's government, for almost ten years. Berlusconism () is a term used in the Western media
Droit du seigneur of the "right of first night" with money payment as an alternative. According to Howarth, this suggests that "droit du seigneur" was a familiar notion to people at that time, which he traces back to Boece. The Jesuit hagiographical work Acta Sanctorum (Acts of the Saints), published from 1643 onwards, recorded the existence of "jus primae noctis" in its biographies of St Margaret and St Forannan. English lexicographer Thomas Blount recorded the "right" as a medieval custom of some English manors in "Fragmenta Antiquitatis" in 1679. French philosopher Montesquieu referred to the practice in The Spirit of the Laws (1748),