Italy's supreme Cassation Court has ruled against the expulsion of a migrant with a serious disability on the grounds that he would not receive the same care at home that he is granted in Italy.
Illegal migrants facing administrative sanctions should not be expelled as an alternative to detention if they have a serious disability for which they would not receive the same care at home that they are granted in Italy, the Supreme Cassation Court has ruled, thus blocking the repatriation of a migrant from Maghreb.
The case concerns a 50-year-old migrant from Maghreb who was wounded in a road accident in Italy for which he filed a lawsuit. The parole court in Perugia on June 23, 2016, rejected the case presented by Mokaadi against a decree issued on March 2016 that ordered his expulsion as an alternative to detention, under a 1998 law.
The migrant had been living in Italy for the past 30 years and was assisted by social security and pensions agency INPS after his left leg was amputated. Cassation judges ruled that although the law does not provide for this exception, humanitarian principles impose that "vulnerable" categories be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
The Cassation's judges noted that the tribunal had given its green light to the man's expulsion despite acknowledging that, given that his country did not have a law to protect the disabled, he could not provide for the basic necessities of life, as he would not be assured a prosthesis or a wheelchair.
It was based on the "presupposition that disability is not part of the conditions set by the legislator to ban expulsion." Laws should be adapted to the principles of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court according to which the forced repatriation of "a person irregularly residing in the State cannot be carried our when its execution brings irreparable damage to the individual's health," the Cassation's judges said. (ANSAmed).