Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s attempts at controlling migratory flows have brought her into conflict with her country’s courts. The court in Rome that invalidated the detention of a handful of migrants in a centre in Albania was put in its proper place after the government announced a decree that successfully amends previous legislation about who can designate migrants’ countries of origin as ‘safe.’
The civil court had ordered the Coast Guard to bring the migrants to Italy because it ruled their home countries, Egypt and Bangladesh, could not be considered safe. On Monday night, the Meloni government fought back by elevating the status of the ‘safe country’ decision from an interministerial decree to ‘primary law.’
Carlo Nordio, the Italian minister of justice, is now calling for sanctions against the judge involved in the case, who described the head of government Giorgia Meloni as “dangerous.”
Nordio posits that the magistrate of the Court of Cassation, Marco Patarnello, acted with partiality for political reasons and made objectionable and politicised comments about the head of government. In front of the deputies, Nordio pointed out that the magistrate was committed to loyal institutional collaboration “including in the diversity of opinions and despite divisions,” as President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella had recently invited him to do.
In a letter to his fellow magistrates, Patarnello indeed described Giorgia Meloni as “dangerous”—even more so than former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, even though she has not been convicted of a crime—because she acted according to her convictions. “Meloni has no judicial investigations against her, so she is not acting for personal interests but according to her political vision, and that makes her action much stronger, and also much more dangerous,” said Patarnello.
“This is a serious sentence that must be taken into consideration,” stressed Minister Nordio, who is calling for disciplinary action against the magistrate. Patarnello thus finds himself at the centre of media attention. The Magistratura Democratica association, to which Patarnello belongs and which hosts the mailing list where his letter was published, considers the public reaction disproportionate and is calling for a public discussion on guaranteeing the constitutional separation of the three powers. The Left is crying conspiracy and denouncing what they see as Meloni’s “victimisation.” Meloni’s ally Matteo Salvini sided with her, calling for Patarnello to be dismissed: “If anyone thinks that the Tribunal is a social centre and a place for political revenge, he is quite simply mistaken,” he explained.