Magistrates union ANM on Saturday
slammed a government amendment that would move rulings on
migrants from the immigration section of the Rome tribunal to
the capital's court of appeals in a bid to end legal hurdles to
Premier Giorgia Meloni's government's controversial new flagship
policy of processing migrants in Albania.
Judges have twice overturned the detention of migrants taken to
the two new Italian-run processing centres in the Balkan country
in a scheme Meloni says will deter migrants to the envy of the
world and which European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen has held up as a potential model for other countries.
ANM President Giuseppe Santalucia said of the emendment to the
government's migrant flow decree: "with a stroke of the pen they
would like to upend the ordinary arrangement of competencies".
Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Wednesday said Italy
knows how to take care of itself after Elon Musk wrote on his
platform X that the Rome judges who nixed the detention of the
second batch of migrants in Albania "needed to go".
On Thursday Musk said after a call with Meloni, a personal
friend, that he respected Mattarella but would continue to state
his views.
Musk, who is set to lead an efficiency drive under newly
re-elected American President Donald Trump, is close to Meloni
and also has a longtime admirer in anti-migrant League party
leader and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, who has insisted the
tycoon is right in criticising what Salvini calls "Communist
judges".
Salvini has also long been an admirer of Trump.
On September 23 Musk presented Meloni with the 'Global Citizen
Award 2024 from Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council,
praising her as "someone who is even more beautiful inside than
outside". Musk said Meloni had done "an incredible job" as prime
minister with "record growth and employment".
"She is someone who is authentic, honest, truthful", added the
billionaire during a ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in
Manhattan.
Thanking Musk for his "precious genius", Meloni delivered a
passionate defence of Western values. After feverish social
media speculation over pictures of the pair enjoying each
other's company, Musk denied suggestions they might be having an
affair.
The seven migrants at the centre of the second case, who are
citizens of Egypt and Bangladesh, have been taken back to a
hosting facility in Italy pending the decision of the European
Court of Justice.
On October 18, the same immigration unit of Rome's tribunal had
failed to validate the detention of 12 migrants who were part of
the first group to be taken to Albania under the government's
controversial agreement with Tirana to run migrant-centres on
Albanian territory.
The court at the time rejected the migrants' detention in
Albania as part of accelerated border procedures on the grounds
that their countries of provenance, which were also Bangladesh
and Egypt, could not be considered wholly safe, based on an
October 4 sentence of the European Court of Justice.
The ECJ has said that a country is not safe if just a part of
its territory is found to be unsafe.
Their cases thus needed to be examined under a regular
procedure, which was not possible in Albania, the court said.
The cabinet has since passed a measure setting a list of 19 safe
countries, including Bangladesh and Egypt, in order to overcome
the legal hurdle to the agreement being applied, saying courts
needed to rule based on the decree rather than on the European
Court of Justice's sentence.
As well as von der Leyen, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is
among the foreign officials who have voiced interest in the
Italy-Albania protocol.
The Italian opposition says it is an expensive propaganda stunt
that will only address a small fraction, an estimated 2%, of the
migrants currently reaching Italy.
When up to speed the two centres are projected to be able to
process a yearly total of 3,000 migrants.
Last year over 150,000 migrants reached Italy's shores, although
the numbers are currently sharply down this year.
The scheme has been costed at over 800 million euros over five
years.
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