Meloni rushes to pass new law to save Albania migration transfer policy
Move by
Italy’s PM comes after ruling by a Rome court to return 12 asylum seekers being
held in Gjadër hub
Lorenzo
Tondo
Mon 21 Oct
2024 14.12 BST
Italy’s
prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said her government is working to immediately
pass a new law on Monday to overcome a court ruling that risks blocking the
country’s multimillion-dollar deal with Albania aimed at curbing migrant
arrivals.
On Friday, a
court in Rome ruled to transfer back to Italy the last 12 asylum seekers being
held in the new Italian migration hub in Albania. The ruling has cast doubt on
the feasibility and legality of plans by the EU to explore ways to establish
migrant processing and detention centres outside the bloc as part of a new
hardline approach to migration.
The group of
individuals, who had arrived at the port of Shëngjin from Lampedusa onboard a
military vessel last week, were among the 16 people transferred for the first
time to the designated facility in Gjadër under the agreement between Meloni
and the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, aimed at holding men who are
intercepted in international waters while trying to cross from Africa to
Europe.
Four of the
16 men were immediately sent back to Italy on Thursday, including two who were
underage and two who were deemed as vulnerable.
The
remaining 12 individuals whom the Rome judges ordered be transferred back to
Italy were returned via the port of Bari on Saturday in a blow to Meloni that
risks turning the initiative into what aid workers and opposition groups have
deemed a “complete failure” and a “financial disaster”.
Meloni’s
party, the far-right Brothers of Italy, angrily condemned the decision on
social media, blaming “politicised magistrates” who “would like to abolish
Italy’s borders. We will not allow it.”
Italy’s
justice minister, Carlo Nordio, attacked the judges, citing how “the definition
of a safe country cannot be up to the judiciary”.
The dispute
that has sparked the clash revolves around the definition of what constitute
“safe countries” of origin for migrants. The 16 asylum seekers hailed from
Egypt and Bangladesh, countries deemed safe by Italy, and therefore, according
to the government, they should have been repatriated to their countries of
origin.
However, the
judges ordered their transfer to Italy, citing how the men could be at risk of
violence if repatriated, effectively upholding the 4 October ruling of the
European court of justice that the Italian government appeared to have
overlooked. As a general rule, EU law takes precedence over conflicting
national laws.
The EU court
made it clear that a country not entirely safe cannot be deemed safe,
underlining that the condition of insecurity, even if limited to a specific
part of the country, such as a certain region, could lead to the entire country
being deemed unsafe.
The aim of
the forthcoming decree is to draw up a new list of safe countries, which can be
updated every six months, and to allow a court of appeal to reconsider rulings
that order the transfer of asylum seekers to Italy. Meloni’s government hopes
in this way to bind the magistrates’ decision to government decrees and not to
international laws.
The row
between the judges and the government escalated further on Sunday when Meloni
published excerpts on social media of a letter sent by one prosecutor to a
group which includes judges.
In it, Judge
Marco Patarnello warned that Meloni was “stronger and much more dangerous” than
the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced frequent legal woes and
who repeatedly attacked the judiciary.
Rightwing
politicians said the letter proved the legal bias against the government.
Critics
pointed out however that Meloni did not post the rest of the text, in which
Patarnello said “we must not engage in political opposition, but we must defend
jurisdiction and the citizens’ right to an independent judge”.
On Monday, the president of the judiciary’s union, Giuseppe Santalucia, said: “We are not against the government, it would be absurd to think that the judiciary, an institution of the country, is against an institution of the country like political power
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