The court of the Sicilian city of Catania this Friday annulled the detention of five migrants in a reception center in Pozzallo, in the south of the country.
This ruling comes days after the same court released several immigrants from a reception center, a decision that left the Italian Prime Minister “stunned.”
The sentence, decided by Judge Iolanda Apostolic, contradicts the latest regulations decreed by Meloni to extend the detention period of asylum seekers and the procedures for their eventual expulsion in case it is rejected.
In this way, the ruling questions the new detention procedure and the bail of 5,000 euros that must be paid to leave the centers, considering it illegitimate to keep migrants who have requested asylum status locked up, based on article 10 of the Constitution. Italian.
In response to this decision, the vice president of the Italian Government, Matteo Salvini, has released a video in which the judge is seen in a 2018 demonstration against the policies of ports closed to humanitarian ships and accusing her of being politicized.
The government’s reaction has outraged the National Association of the Judiciary (ANM), which brings together 96% of Italian judges, which has recalled that “criticism of judicial decisions must move within the perimeter of reciprocal respect between institutions and their prerogatives.”
The Catania court is not the only one that contradicts Meloni, since last week, a court in Florence suspended the expulsion from Italy of a Tunisian migrant whose asylum application was denied on the grounds that he could not be returned to the country. African.
In addition, the court asked the Italian Executive to consider excluding Tunisia from the list of safe countries, citing the “serious socioeconomic, health, water, food and political crisis.”
