Migrants, this is how the “red” judges freed over 100 illegal immigrants –

Dario Martini

October 12, 2024

Government and Parliament make laws to ensure that migrants not entitled to asylum are repatriated. Then, however, there are the judges who make them leave the CPR, knowing full well that once free they will disappear. These are not isolated events, but a consolidated routine. Suffice it to say that from mid-March to today, in Sicily alone, 108 detention requests made by the police commissioners have not been validated. While only 21 have been validated. It means that out of 129 total cases, 84% of the time there was a rejection decision.

To understand the costs we are talking about, you need to rewind the tape a few months. Initially, migrants who needed more time to process their asylum request were taken to the CPR in Pozzallo, in the province of Ragusa. 25 times, in 100% of cases, the competent judges of the Catania court rejected the detention requests made by the Ragusa police commissioner. So, perhaps also to take action, the repatriation center in Porto Empedocle, in the province of Agrigento, was also opened after August 15th. In this case the competent court is another, that of Palermo. But the music hasn’t changed. In less than two months, the magistrates of the regional capital have rejected 83 arrest requests, validating only 21 of them.

Some will wonder how this is possible. Simple, once the law is made, the quibble is found. Previously, the reasons for the rejection were always the same: gaps in the formulation of the requests by Fermi. These are the detention requests recognized by the judges of the Palermo police commissioner. Translated: the risk of escape would not have been sufficiently justified. Then the police commissioners took cover and began to write the requests even more scrupulously. At the Palermo court, however, they did not give up. And they found another way to reject them. The assist came from Europe. A few days ago, on 4 October, as “Libero” writes, the EU Court of Justice ruled that a country cannot be designated as safe “if certain parts of its territory do not satisfy the substantial conditions”, i.e. the possibility of demonstrating that there, «in a general and uniform way, persecution as defined in Article 9 of Directive 2011/95 is never used», as well as torture or other inhuman treatment. All this to argue, again based on the European interpretation, that Tunisia is not a safe country. Unlike what the Italian government establishes. Tunisia, in fact, appears on the list of safe countries drawn up by decree by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice and the Interior.

Being part of this list means that citizens of these countries can be sent home if they are found to be irregularly present on Italian territory. So four days ago, on 8 October, the immigration section of the Palermo court explicitly referred to the ruling of the EU Court to issue five decrees rejecting the detention measures in Porto Empedocle for four Tunisian immigrants. Attention. The repercussions may also concern the centers that have just opened in Albania, where migrants headed for Italy will be taken. Since Italian law will apply there too, and Italian judges will decide, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to repatriate those who come from Tunisia. Unless the appeals of the Ministry of the Interior are accepted.

Time passes, but nothing seems to change. We are still faced with the modus operandi inaugurated a year ago by judge Iolanda Apostolico, who hit the headlines for having had several migrants released by the Pozzallo CPR, but also for having taken part in a protest against Matteo Salvini when he was minister of the Interior at the time of the Diciotti ship case.