(CN) — A court in Rome on Friday struck down Italy’s contentious plan to use Albania for processing asylum seekers picked up in the Mediterranean Sea, a major blow to far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Judges in Rome ordered a group of migrants from Bangladesh and Egypt taken Wednesday by an Italian navy vessel to the port of Shëngjin, Albania, to be brought to Italy for processing. The judges said their detention in Albania was illegal.
The ruling prompted a fierce response from Meloni’s government, which vowed to appeal the lower court’s decision. Conversely, opposition parties and human rights groups hailed the decision as proof that Meloni’s Albania scheme was from the outset a waste of money and legally dubious.
Meloni’s idea to ship migrants to Albania has won praise from various European Union leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and it’s even been held up as a model for other countries to follow. Friday’s ruling, then, was also a setback for tough-on-migration politicians across the EU.
In its ruling, an immigration section of the Rome court said Italy was wrong to classify the Egyptian and Bangladeshi men as coming from “safe countries” and therefore eligible to be sent to Albania and deported. The Rome court cited an Oct. 4 ruling by the European Court of Justice, the EU’s high court, that said a country cannot be deemed safe if a portion of its territory is a conflict zone. Under this definition, Egypt and Bangladesh are not countries where people can be deported to without concern for their safety, the Rome court said.
Even before Friday’s ruling, the Italian scheme encountered problems almost as soon as the first group of migrants were brought to Albania.
On Thursday, Italian media reported that four of the 16 males taken to Albania would have to be sent to Italy because two were found to be minors and two were sick.
Under Italy’s protocol for sending migrants to Albania, it agreed to not ship women, children and vulnerable people, a definition that includes people with serious health problems.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the Democratic Party, Italy’s main opposition party, slammed Meloni and her “Albania model.”
“Shame on you,” Schlein said, as reported by Italian media. “The deal made with Albania is an illegal deal, a deal that violates international law.”
Meloni blasted the ruling as “prejudicial” and accused the judges of impeding her government from solving the problem of illegal immigration. She said her government would try to find ways around the ruling.
“It’s not up to the judiciary to say which countries are safe but up to the government,” she told reporters during a visit to war-torn Beirut. She was in the Middle East to urge Israel to stop attacking United Nations peacekeepers along the Lebanon border, including more than 1,000 Italian troops.
In a statement, her far-right Brothers of Italy decried the ruling as one made by left-wing “politicized judges” who “would like to abolish Italy’s borders” to allow unfettered immigration.
Her political allies used similarly harsh language. The League, a far-right party in Meloni’s coalition, depicted Friday’s ruling as an “unacceptable” political ploy by “pro-immigrant” judges who should “run for election” instead of sit on court benches.
“But they aren’t going to intimidate us,” the League said.
Antonio Tajani, the head of the right-wing Forza Italia, another party in the ruling coalition, said the ruling went against “the will of the people” who want the government to curb illegal immigration.
Luca Masera, a law professor at the University of Brescia who specializes on migration, said the court was expected to rule against Italy.
He worried, though, about the adversarial approach of Meloni’s government toward the judiciary.
“This government continues to attack the courts,” he said in a telephone interview before Friday’s ruling. “This government can’t stand how the courts are upholding fundamental rights.”
He called the government’s attempt to “delegitimize” the judiciary by accusing it of impeding it from carrying out its work very concerning.
“This creates a climate of fear,” he said. “This is also how dictatorships start.”
As with other far-right leaders and parties around the world, there are growing concerns in Italy that Meloni is drifting toward an undemocratic approach to government as she pushes to change election laws, seize control of public broadcasters, ostracize minority groups, deport illegal immigrants and sue her critics in court.
Last November, Meloni signed the migrant deal with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. Under the deal, two Italian-run processing centers will handle up to 36,000 asylum claims a year in the small Balkan nation.
Italy is not giving Albania money for allowing it to operate the centers on its territory, but Meloni has promised to back Albania’s bid to join the EU. There are some economic benefits for Albania with hundreds of Italian personnel running the centers lodging there.
The project is costly with Italy expecting to spend about 670 million euros (about $727 million) on it by the end of 2028, including about $103 million spent so far.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.