It is up to the foreign minister and
other competent ministers to decide what countries are safe for
migrant repatriation, the supreme Court of Cassation said Monday
in a preliminary ruling on a Rome court's immigration section
nixing on October 18 the detention of the first batch of
migrants to be taken to Albania under the government's
controversial new policy of processing them in the Balkan
country.
The detention of the 12 migrants was quashed after the
immigration section ruled that their countries of origin, Egypt
and Bangladesh, were not wholly safe, inline with a previous
European Curt of Justice sentence.
Another immigration section later overturned the detention of a
second batch of eight migrants taken to one of the two
processing centres in Albania.
The government has since drafted a list of safe countries
including Egypt and Bangladesh and transferred jurisdiction in
the cases to appeals courts.
Premier Giorgia Meloni said last week that the Albania scheme
would get back up and running in the New Year with Navy ship
Lybra picking up more migrants in a policy that has garnered
interest in the EU and been praised by Elon Musk, a friend of
Meloni's, among others.
photo: Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announcing resumption of
scheme on a pre-Xmas visit to Kosovo
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