Refoulements: the court of Rome sentences the Viminale to compensate a Pakistani citizen, thrown out on the eastern border of Europe

ROME – With the sentence of 9 May 2023, the Court of Rome upheld the appeal of a Pakistani citizen who entered Italy in October 2020 and then transferred first to Slovenia, then to Croatia and finally to Bosnia Herzegovina, according to a chain of informal rejections very widespread on the eastern border of Europe. The Pakistani national was formally prevented from applying for asylum.

Readmissions are illegal. With this decision, the Tribunal reaffirmed the illegitimacy of the readmission procedure implemented on the eastern Italian border on the basis of an agreement signed between Italy and Slovenia in 1996, never ratified by Parliament. Procedure that the Italian Government, among other things, after having suspended it in 2021, has decided to restore starting from November 2022 but, at least formally, not for those who ask for international protection.

The sentence. The readmissions, the Tribunal wrote, are unlawful and therefore illegitimate because they violate domestic law, including constitutional law, and international law, in particular as regards the procedures that regulate political asylum. The court also reaffirms the illegitimacy of decisions that do not take into account individual situations and therefore harm the right to defense and the right to lodge an appeal. The chain of readmissions of which the Pakistani citizen, whom the ministry will now have to compensate with over eighteen thousand euros, was the victim of and which caused him unjust damage, exposing him to a series of violations of his fundamental rights was demonstrated in court.

The Justice Network. To defend the Pakistani citizen were the lawyers of theItalian Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (Asgi) Caterina Bove and Anna Brambilla. But the work was the result of a collaboration that involved various subjects active in the fight against violence against people on the move active along the Balkan route, including the Ri-Volti ai Balcani network, the journalist Elisa Oddone, the NGO “Along the Balkan route”, the PIC association (in particular Ursa Regvar), the Medea project of the ASGI, ICS Refugee Office, Linea d’ombra, the Zagreb Peace Center, Anela Dedic and all the activists and the activists who act for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina and along the routes traveled by people in transit.