As the Italian government persists in its attempts to violate international law, it continues to encounter judicial obstacles. In response, ministers have intensified their time-honoured attacks on the courts.
On the 17th of October, Italian authorities requested permission from the Court of Rome to detain 12 Egyptian and Bangladeshi men rescued off the coast of Lampedusa in an asylum processing centre in Albania.
This was to mark the debut of the Italian government’s new strategy to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. Those rescued at sea were to be ‘screened’ before reaching dry land. Those deemed ‘not vulnerable’—healthy adult men travelling without family members from countries classified by Italy as safe—would be transported to Italian-run detention centres on Albanian soil rather than being immediately brought ashore. These men were then to be subject to a ‘streamlined’ asylum process, intended to take no more than 28 days, after which time the majority could expect repatriation.
The government’s celebrations, however, were swiftly brought to a close as the tribunal quickly declined the request, necessitating the transfer of the men back to Italy less than five days after their arrival in Albania. Whilst Egypt and Bangladesh feature on the list of safe countries for repatriation produced by the Italian government, their inclusion on such a list is illegitimate according to EU Directive 2013/32, which states that a third country can only be safe, if no resident risks persecution or being put into significant danger, due to indiscriminate violence on any part of its territory. Indeed, the majority of countries on Italy’s list - which coincide with the countries from which the majority of asylum seekers in Italy come - fail to meet this criterion. As EU law takes precedence over domestic policy, the offshore detention of these persons was therefore illegal.
Most would presumably interpret this as a clear case of domestic policy clashing with international law, expecting inevitable anger to be directed towards EU institutions. In the imagination of the far-right Italian government, however, it is a continuation of a longstanding phenomenon; left-wing judges conspiring to sabotage the activities of the state.
“The left-wing of the judiciary comes running to the aid of the parliamentary left. Some politicised judges…would like to abolish Italy’s borders, we won’t let them.” This was the content of the tweet posted on the ruling party’s — Fratelli d'Italia — X account in response to the court ruling on the 18th of October. Political attacks on the integrity of the Italian judiciary became so intense following the case that national and international magistrates’ associations along with human rights organisations published statements denouncing the ‘naming and shaming’ of one of the presiding judges as well as what has been seen as a broader attempt to undermine the autonomy of courts.
As in Britain, attacks on the judiciary are nothing new in Italian politics, but they have intensified under the current government. In 2019, deputy prime minister and then interior minister, Matteo Salvini, asked the state attorney to investigate whether three judges who delivered verdicts against Interior Ministry measures deemed legally inadmissible or anti-constitutional ‘should have abstained’ from presiding over the relevant cases, for supposedly having expressed opinions which ‘contrast[ed] with government policy on the subject of security, [migrant] reception and defence of borders’ outside of work. Last year, the revelation that the judiciary was investigating tourism minister and close Meloni aide, Daniela Santanchè, for bankruptcy and fraud; a judge’s refusal to halt an investigation into a Fratelli d’Italia party official for breaching secrecy rules; and an ongoing trial into Salvini for kidnap for blocking the disembarkation of a sea rescue ship led members of the governing party to accuse a “segment of the judiciary” of “choosing to play an active opposition role” to the government ahead of the European elections.
The judiciary is not the only institution which has had to suffer the ire of ministers and all those loyal to Prime Minister Meloni; media outlets which refuse to toe the line endure attacks just as, if not more, intense. Magistrates and journalists alike have spoken about a climate of fear which has come to envelop the exercise of their professions. None of this is accidental but constitutes a strategy to weaken institutions capable of keeping the ruling coalition in check, delegitimising them in the eyes of the public and making rulings against the government or its ministers increasingly fraught. All this takes place as the spectre of a judiciary reform, which many magistrates worry will serve to establish greater political control over the courts in the next few years, lingers on the horizon.
This shouldn’t come as a great surprise. The increasingly illiberal regime of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose attacks on inter alia the judiciary and the media have led the state to face sanctions from the EU, has long served as somewhat of a model for the European far-right, and Italy’s governing parties are no exception. Furthermore, it is not just in Hungary that we can see the behaviour of the Italian government reflected; judiciaries across Europe have repeatedly come under threat over the last few years, from France to Poland.
What will come of the Albania migrant deal is yet to be seen. Subsequent to the transfer of the 12 asylum seekers from Albania, the Interior Ministry issued a decree giving a (scarcely) modified list of safe countries - which, however, still included Bangladesh and Egypt - the force of law, in an attempt to circumvent the judges’ ruling. This attempt was unsuccessful; the decree was deemed inadmissible by certain courts and referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by others. Prominent ministers lamented the scourge of ‘communist’ judges. When a request for authorisation for the detention of seven more Bangladesh and Egyptian migrants was made a little over a week ago, this was again denied, with the case being again referred to the ECJ. It is now up to the EU to give a verdict. Yet it seems that no matter the outcome, the judiciary faces some turbulent years ahead.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/European Union
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