ANM considering intervention over Catania judge video

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 5 - Magistrates union ANM said on Thursday it will "assess, together with the person directly concerned, whether and how to intervene" in relation to a video posted by Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini on X dating to August 2018 and allegedly featuring a Catania judge at the centre of a political storm after she ruled that parts of two recent government decrees on migrants were illegitimate.
    Salvini posted the footage of a protest demonstration in the port of Catania against the government's then closed-port policies against NGO rescue ships after Catania lawmaker Anastasio Carrà, a member of his right-wing League party, claimed he recognised Judge Iolanda Apostolico among the people present.
    Salvini was deputy premier and interior minister at the time.
    Last weekend Apostolico overturned detention orders against four Tunisian nationals being held at the newly-opened pre-removal centre (CPR) at the Pozzallo first reception centre, or hotspot, in Sicily under a new law providing for the detention of asylum-seekers from so-called safe countries of origin during the assessment of their claim.
    The decision sparked strong protests from the government and right-wing politicians, with Premier Giorgia Meloni saying she was "astonished" by the ruling and the interior ministry saying that it would appeal, amid claims - based on social media posts - that the judge is biased.
    Consequently, on Tuesday members of the Italian judiciary's self-governing body CSM presented a request for a procedure to be opened to protect her.
    "Minister Salvini's initiative to share a video of the 2018 demonstration in Catania is intended to confuse the levels," said CSM councillor Roberto Fontana, one of the magistrates behind the move to protect Apostolico.
    "Jurisdiction is expressed through provisions, which can obviously be criticised and challenged on technical-legal grounds," he continued.
    "Shifting the focus to the life of the magistrate and her possible activities outside the judicial sphere is a way to avoid confrontation on the merit of the measure and an attempt to delegitimise judicial activity," Fontana said.
    Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said Wednesday that "no one wants to repeat the years of lead of conflict between politics and the judiciary", ruling out a new institutional clash.
    The government and the judiciary have already come to blows on several occasions during the current parliament over decisions involving members of the cabinet and planned judicial reform.
    (ANSA).