Italian Court Refers New Immigration Law to European Court of Justice
Seeking Judgment on Criteria for Safe Country Designation and More
The Italian government’s plan to transfer migrants who have entered the country to a third country, Albania, for repatriation has encountered difficulties. This is because the Bologna court challenged the government decree that newly defines the ‘safe country’ criteria for migrant transfers.
According to Ansa News and others on the 29th (local time), the Bologna court referred the decree to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). A safe country refers to a country where migrants are unlikely to face persecution by the government even if they are repatriated.
The Bologna court argued that classifying countries with evidence of minority persecution as safe countries was incorrect and inquired to the ECJ about the use of parameters in selecting safe countries.
Documents obtained by major foreign media show that the Bologna court claimed that according to the decree’s logic defining a safe country as ‘a country where ordinary citizens live safely,’ Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy would also qualify as safe countries. It is also reported that the court requested the ECJ to decide which should take precedence when EU law supremacy conflicts with domestic law.
The Italian government convened an emergency cabinet meeting on the 21st and approved the decree. The new decree redefines the safe country and designates it by a prime ministerial order, reducing the number of safe countries from the existing 22 to 19.
This decree was prepared by the government to nullify a decision by the Rome District Court’s immigration division on the 18th, which refused to allow the detention of the first group of migrants transferred by Italy to Albania.
At that time, the Rome District Court ruled that migrants from Bangladesh and Egypt did not meet the detention requirements because they did not come from safe countries and ordered their immediate return to Italy. Italy, which has an agreement with Albania, can only send migrants from safe countries among those rescued in its territorial waters to Albania.
As this ruling caused setbacks from the very first migrant transfer and threatened to collapse the migrant agreement itself, the Italian government quickly processed a new decree with somewhat stricter safe country criteria within three days.
Furthermore, this ruling follows the precedent set by the ECJ, the EU’s highest court, on the 4th of this month. At that time, the ECJ ruled that a country can only be designated as safe if the entire country, not just parts of it, is safe.
Italy and Albania announced a plan last November to build two migrant reception centers near the Albanian port of Sh?ngjin and the nearby Zadar area, aiming to manage and curb illegal migrants entering Italy for five years.
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