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".
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