The 12 Bangladeshi and Egyptian refugees who were taken to Italy’s new reception centre in Albania on Wednesday must now return to Italy. This was decided by judges in Rome. But the judiciary is not in the media spotlight only because of this decision. The e-mail sent by the deputy prosecutor to his colleagues is also causing quite a stir in the public. In it, he wrote, among other things, that Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni is more dangerous than former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It is not only in Slovenia that the left-wing faction and the alleged lack of integrity of the judiciary threaten the safety of citizens. A similar thing is happening in our neighbouring Italy, as is shown by the news exposing the e-mail sent by the supervising judge, Marco Patarnello, a prominent member of the democratic judicial establishment, to his colleagues. In it, he wrote, among other things, of the government of Giorgia Meloni: “This needs to be fixed.” The exchange included representatives of the democratic judiciary and the ANM (Associazione Nazionale Magistrati).
“Undoubtedly, the attack on jurisdiction has never been so strong, perhaps not even in Berlusconi’s time. And it is certainly much more dangerous and insidious today for several reasons. First of all, because there is no judicial investigation against Meloni and therefore she is not acting out of personal interests, but out of political visions, and is much more powerful because of this,” reads the communication, which has reached a wider circle of the Italian judiciary. The e-mail also stipulates that the judiciary must not deal with “political opposition”. It was written by Deputy Prosecutor Marco Patarnello, who is currently the Supervisory Judge of the Supervisory Court in Rome and a member of the Democratic Magistracy.
A leading member of the democratic judiciary
Born in 1962 in Bari, Puglia, Patarnello was the Deputy Secretary General of the CSM, the Supreme Judicial Council, in 2011. This position has caused some controversy in professional circles due to the way it was awarded. Two candidates were said to have been in the running for the role: Patarnello and Claudio Galoppi. The latter, according to the media outlet Italiaoggi, was the more competent of the two, but the decision in the end went to Patarnello; the reason for this was said to be the tacit agreement between the various branches of the self-governing body of judges.
The decision was confirmed by Silvia Albano, former President of the Criminal Chamber and defender of the many battles to defend the rights of suspects and defendants, who has been repeatedly accused of acting in a pro-migrant manner. The judges based their decision on a recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Rome has recently extended the list of safe countries where returned refugees are supposed to be safe from persecution, torture or discrimination, but there are still countries that are not fully safe. The Court of Justice of the European Union recently ruled that only a whole country can be defined as safe. This means that 12 of the 16 Bangladeshi and Egyptian refugees transferred to Albania this week do not meet the criteria for detention in Albania under the Rome-Tirana agreement. The 12 will now have to be transferred back to Italy.
Reacting to the decision, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stressed that judges should not obstruct the work of the government. “I am very accustomed to respecting the decisions of the judiciary, but I also want the decisions of the executive and the legislature to be respected, because democracy is based on the separation of powers, ” Tajani told reporters. Members of the Brothers of Italy party, which is led by the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have been very critical of what happened, saying that judges are politicised because they have ruled that the two countries of origin of the refugees are not safe. As the party wrote on the social network X, this makes it impossible to return illegal migrants.
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