Vincenzo De Luca, the candidate for Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in Sunday's regional elections in Campania, said Thursday that a ruling this week by the supreme court does not mean that he will be suspended if he wins. In a decision registered on Thursday, the supreme Court of Cassation said ordinary courts, not administrative courts, must rule on cases concerning a 2012 anti-corruption law - the so-called Severino law - banning from public office people convicted of certain crimes. Some experts believed this would have implications for De Luca, who was convicted in January this year of abuse of office in connection with an incinerator project while he was mayor of the city of Salerno, and handed a suspended sentence of a year in prison plus a one-year ban from holding public office. As a result of the conviction, he was also suspended from holding public office for 18 months under the Severino law - but the Campania Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) reinstated him three days later.
"The problem of the Severino law has been overcome because the law is not applicable to those who are elected for the first time," De Luca said at a forum hosted by Naples-based daily Corriere del Mezzogiorno.
"So I won't be suspended".
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