Criminal reform-statue of limitations bills combined

(ANSA) - Rome, April 28 - The Senate's justice committee on Thursday voted in favour of combining a bill reforming criminal proceedings with another on Italy's statute of limitations. As a result the rapporteurs of the bills, Giuseppe Cucca and Felice Casson of Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), will be able to include measures to extend the statute of limitations to the base text that will probably be presented on Tuesday.
    Many thousands of criminal cases time out every year and the government is under pressure to take action to stop this following a long series of corruption cases, some of which have hit PD members.
    Justice Minister Andrea Orlando said Wednesday he was "reasonably optimistic" the PD could reach an agreement with its junior coalition partners, after the centrist NCD said extending the statute of limitations risked making snail-paced trials drag on even more.