Bologna judges didn't attack political sphere- lawyers

Criminal attorneys take stance over 'safe countries' row

By: ansa.it

Nov 02 2024
0
0 Views

Bologna judges didn't attack p

The Italian Criminal Lawyers Association on Saturday defended the Bologna judges who referred a new government measure defining a list of safe countries for repatriation to the European Court of Justice, a move that sparked accusations that the judiciary was encroaching the political realm.
    "The Court of Bologna moved with particular prudence by placing its requests within the correct supranational and national normative and jurisprudential parameters," said the association's president Francesco Petrelli.
    "It is frankly impossible to see the choice of a preliminary interlocution with the Court of Justice, as an attack on politics".
    The Bologna court's referral to ask which parameter should be used when determining safety and whether the principle of the primacy of EU law should prevail if a conflict arises with Italian legislation was issued in relation to an appeal presented by an asylum seeker from Bangladesh.
    The government decree listing 19 countries, including Bangladesh, as safe, said Italian courts cannot rule against it on the basis of an October 4 European Court of Justice sentence based on which Rome judges nixed the detention of a group of migrants at a new Italian-run centre in Albania last month.
    On Friday Giuseppe Santalucia, the president of magistrates union ANM, said the Italian judiciary is unable to work with serenity because of repeated claims from members of the ruling coalition that some of its decisions are politically motivated.
    Santalucia singled out Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini for criticism after the minister hit out at a Bologna court's referral.
    "On Monday I will be in Bologna for an extraordinary assembly, which testifies the climate of unease about this way of doing politics, about the media close to the current governing majority, which stops magistrates from working in serenity," Santalucia told La7 television.
    "You cannot do anything without getting labelled afterwards as being politicized magistrates.
    "You make a decision that is not liked and you become a 'Red'.
    "This is unacceptable.
    "I ask Minister Salvini what is inappropriate about a measure that asks the EU court of justice for a ruling on compliance".