Here we go again. Here we are again to tell of a sentence for irregular immigrants. This time it was the court of Catania that cancelled the detention of an Egyptian migrant who arrived in Sicily. Egypt, in short, is not a safe country for the Catania judges and the migrant cannot be repatriated. Egypt had also been at the centre of the Rome court ruling, which had officially opened the case of the suspension of the agreement with Albania. In that case too, Egypt was declared unsafe despite appearing on the list of safe countries drawn up by the government. For the magistrates of Catania, “a list of ‘safe countries’ “does not exempt the judge from the obligation of verifying the compatibility of such a designation with EU law, and in Egypt there are serious violations of human rights that affect the freedoms of a democratic order”. And it is an emblematic case, that of Catania, because it is the first judgement that avoids the list of safe countries as a primary source, after the Meloni government decided to promote it to a decree-law (before it was an inter-ministerial decree, therefore a secondary source) precisely to make its non-observance more difficult. The message is clear: Egypt is not safe for judges, so cancel all trips to Cairo and Sharm El-Sheikh.
The interpretation of the judges
Apparently, however, the court in Catania did not take any particular issue and, in general, did not even wait for the decision of the European Court to which the court in Bologna (another case) appealed precisely on this matter. The issue revolves, once again, as in the previous cases of Rome and Catania, around a ruling by the European Court of Justice itself, from which the principle was derived that a country cannot be considered safe if its entire territory is not safe. But if this principle has been implemented by the executive, eliminating three countries from the list of safe countries that did not meet the territoriality requirement, our judges extend the ruling to include discrimination. “The cited risks of insecurity that affect, in a stable and ordinary manner, entire and indeterminate categories of people,” writes the judge, “lead ‘de plano’ the decider to deny that Egypt can be considered a safe country in the light of European Union law. And all would be well, were it not that – as is actually done – every migrant is de facto considered a possible victim of discrimination because he or she is a possible or potential member of a certain category of people.
The goal: welcome for all
But it should be made clear that, following this logic (the same and contrary to that of the judge in Bologna, according to whom even ‘Nazi Germany could be considered a safe country’), any state in the world can have the appropriate requirements to be considered unsafe. In Italy, for example, there are entire neighbourhoods that have been taken away from the state and that the judiciary is unable to clean up: in these neighbourhoods, of course, all constitutional rights are not guaranteed. And like Italy, all western countries can fail in the territorial requirement and in that of discrimination against certain categories of people. Here we understand the destructive potential of certain decisions of the judiciary, which could lead to a definitive halt to repatriation policies. Which would mean indiscriminate reception for anyone, billions of people who could potentially cross our borders without the possibility of defending ourselves.
FdI: ‘Let the sovereignty of Parliament and government be respected’
“The decision of the judges of the Court of Catania – is the statement of Tommaso Foti, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia group in the Chamber of Deputies – appears to pursue the sole purpose of hindering any action aimed at countering mass illegal immigration, as well as making it difficult – if not impossible – to repatriate those who enter Italy illegally. The claim by some judges to replace Parliament is misplaced, as it constitutes dangerous interference in the legislative process. With today’s decision – but it is not the first time this has happened – the judge in question seems to want to substitute himself for the legislator’s political choices, improperly using – he added – the reference to European law, given that even the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice clearly states that it is up to the State to identify safe countries. Not only that, Parliament is the only body with the legitimacy to establish policies on immigration and security, in compliance with international and national standards: we therefore ask that its sovereignty be respected, since it is the sole holder of the political representation of the will of the people’. But the government goes ahead: the ship Libra, after the first stop, has returned to the Mediterranean and has already taken some migrants south of Lampedusa to transfer them to Albania.
