Posted on November 26, 2024

Italy Moves to Replace Courts That Ruled Against Its Migrant Detentions

Angelo Amante, Reuters, November 21, 2024

Italy’s right-wing coalition has passed rules to change the courts responsible for validating the detention of migrants, in what the opposition said was a vendetta against judges who recently blocked a plan to send asylum seekers to Albania.

The Albanian facilities are a key pillar of the government’s policy to crack down on illegal arrivals and speed up repatriations.

The move comes against a backdrop of tensions between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government and the judiciary, after migration judges issued orders to bring to Italy people being held in the Albanian camps.

Under a proposal approved by a parliamentary committee late on Wednesday, future rulings on migrant detentions would pass from the migrant judges to Italy’s regular appeal courts.

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Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party said the aim of the shift was to promote efficiency, while transferring to a higher court an issue related to human rights.

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