Rome, 24 Nov. (AKI) - An Italian Senate committee on Tuesday was due to examine a controversial bill to cap the length of trials. The government wants to drive the controversial measure through the parliament by the end of the year.

The government claims the measure will reform Italy's notoriously slow judicial system, but opponents say the bill has been drafted to help prime minister Silvio Berlusconi escape trial for alleged tax fraud and corruption.

The bill is being considered by the upper house's justice committee and is expected to conclude in two weeks.

If the trial-length bill becomes law, around half the trials pending Rome and in the northern cities of Bologna and Turin would be shelved.

Between 20 to 30 percent of trials in the central city of Florence and southern cities of Naples and Palermo will be "timed out", according to the Italian Association of Magistrates.

Italian justice minister Angelino Alfano has predicted only one percent of pending trials would be annulled under the bill.

The bill would limit trials to six years for offences carrying a sentence of ten years, from the first verdict through two rounds of appeals.

The measure would apply only to crimes that carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years and could not be used by repeat offenders or for crimes such as criminal association or child pornography.

Italy's top court, the Constitutional Court, earlier this month rejected a law that granted the prime minister and the other three most senior office-bearers in the country immunity from prosecution, paving the way for two trials to re-open against Berlusconi.

In one of the trials Berlusconi is accused of tax fraud involving his broadcaster Mediaset's purchase of TV rights in the United States. The charges are currently due to expire in 2012.

In a second trial due to resume on 27 November, Berlusconi is accused of paying his former tax adviser, David Mills, 600,000 dollars to give misleading evidence on his behalf in two corruption trials in the 1990s.

These charges are due to run out in 2011.

The trial-length bill has generated a bitter political debate in Italy and Berlusconi's opponents have described it as a cynical attempt to solve his legal problems.

The Italian opposition has vowed to oppose the trial-length bill, which it claims is a shameless piece of legislation aimed at putting Berlusconi beyond the reach of the law.

The bill has opened up divisions within Berlusconi's ruling conservative coalition and this week drew sharp criticism from Italy's former president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In an unprecedented attack, Ciampi called for an end to "personalised" laws and said Berlusconi and his government had introduced "barbaric" legal reforms and used a "pickaxe" to demolish the Italian Constitution.

"We live in a sad time," Ciampi said.

Left-leaning Italian newspaper on Monday published what it claimed were 18 examples of laws, including the Lodo Alfano, passed by the conservative Berlusconi governments that have benefited the premier and his companies.

Berlusconi denies all the charges against him and has long claimed his legal woes are the result of persecution by "Communist" Italian prosecutors.

He has said he intends to go on Italian television to "explain" his government's laws to the Italian people.