Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday said
the supreme Cassation Court's ruling in favour of an appeal
filed by a group of migrants who were not allowed to disembark
from the Italian coast guard's Diciotti vessel that had rescued
them at sea on August 16-25 2018 as part of then-interior
minister Matteo Salvini's closed ports policy was
"questionable".
"The joint chambers of the Cassation Court have sentenced the
government to pay compensation to a group of illegal migrants
transported by the Diciotti ship because the cabinet at the
time, with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, did not immediately
allow them to disembark in Italy.
"They did it by affirming a compensation principle that is
highly questionable, which assumes damage, in contrast with
consolidated case law and with the conclusions of the prosecutor
general", Meloni said on social media.
"Substantially, due to this decision, the government will need
to pay compensation - with the money of honest Italian citizens
who pay taxes - to people who tried to enter Italy illegally,
violating the law of the Italian State", also wrote the premier.
Meloni noted how such a decision would not help "citizens get
closer to institutions".
The League party led by Deputy Premier and Transport Minister
Matteo Salvini meanwhile called the ruling "absurd" in a note.
"These judges should pay with their own money if they love
illegal (migrants) so much", said the statement posted on social
media.
Italy's supreme Cassation Court on Friday ruled in favour of the
appeal demanding that the Italian government compensate the
Diciotti passengers on the grounds that they had been deprived
of their personal freedom.
The Cassation's panel of judges sent the case back to a regular
court saying the tribunal will need to determine the amount of
compensation to be granted to the migrants.
The Diciotti coast guard ship picked up 190 migrants on August
16 2018 from an overcrowded boat off Lampedusa after they were
refused entry to Malta.
Thirteen of them were taken to Lampedusa because of serious
medical conditions but the remaining 177, mostly from Eritrea,
remained stranded on the boat for 10 days.
Salvini was at the time probed for allegedly abducting the
migrants on the ship.
However the Senate, of which Salvini was a member, rejected a
request to investigate the former interior minister filed by the
tribunal of ministers tasked with cases involving members of the
executive.
Asked by reporters to comment on the Cassation's ruling, Deputy
Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Friday that he
also did not agree with the sentence and its "legal grounds".
Tajani, the leader of the centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party,
noted that it was the "government's duty to defend national
borders, but if all irregular migrants were to demand
compensation the State would default".
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