A judge frees three migrants saying government measures against them under a new migrant-crackdown decree were illegitimate in a test case.
The online edition of la Repubblica reported a judge on Sicily freed three migrants calling the government decree illegitimate.
The court in Catania accepted the appeal of a migrant, who landed in mid-September in Lampedusa, and was then taken to the new centre in Pozzallo. The court judged the recent government decree “illegitimate in several parts”, the paper reported.
In particular, legal sources underline, “the judges contest the new detention procedure and the €5,000 deposit to be paid in order not to go to the centre”.
Under the new moves, migrants can be held in pre-expulsion CPR centres for up to 18 months. However, they can post a ‘bail’ of €5,000 in order to avert being detained. This measure has spurred widespread criticism.
Interior Ministry to appeal judgement
The Interior Ministry said it will appeal the Catania court’s ruling.
Sources close to the migrant dossier said “The accelerated border procedure is one of the aspects that, already contained in the 2023 European directive, today finds the unanimous agreement of European countries within the framework of the new Migration and Asylum Pact which is being built. The Italian government also disciplined this action in its Cutro decree”. This refers to an emergency decree issued in Cutro where 94 migrants and refugees died in a shipwreck in February.
The ruling Brothers of Italy (FdI) party earlier called the ruling, which it said had freed four Tunisians, political and ideological.
Magistrates’ union says decision is democracy at work
Magistrates’ union ANM said it was simply democracy at work, and not interference in the political sphere.
The Catania judge’s ruling is evidence of democracy at work, not judicial interference with the executive branch, the ANM said.
“We do not participate in political and government policy, we do jurisdiction,” the president of the ANM, Giuseppe Santalucia, told ANSA.
“It is physiological that there may be measures by judges that go against certain government projects and programmes. And this must not be experienced as interference, this is democracy”.
