LONDON — How much importance should we give to the right to privacy? Should politicians and personalities in the public eye be expected to forgo this right because the public need to know the facts about them in order to judge their fitness for office?

These questions have been much aired recently. The antics of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with nubile young women have been reported at length, together with suggestive photographs, in popular magazines.

Berlusconi has never made a secret of his fondness for women, but it has been alleged that his entourage has systematically recruited young women to attend his parties in Rome and in Sardinia, and it has been reported that he gave them monetary presents as well as jewelry.