The Rome-based Administrative Court of Lazio ruled in favor of new provisions allowing the government to assign the inconvenient northern disembarkation ports of Ancona and La Spezia to Doctors Without Borders' Geo Barents search-and-rescue ship.
A Rome court ruled that new provisions allowing Italian authorities to assign the inconvenient northern ports of Ancona and La Spezia to Doctors Without Borders' Geo Barents ship are legal.
The court rejected two appeals filed by the NGO, reiterating that it is "undeniable" that it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior to assign ports as "rescue missions must be viewed in the widest most complex framework possible of the sea migration phenomenon".
'A safe port is not necessarily the nearest one'
In its decision, the court said the "rationale by which the notion of 'safe port' must coincide with the one nearest to the rescue area is not based on rational logic".
It added that "there isn't an accepted and international definition of 'safe port' tied to the concept of the nearest port".
For the judges, the Ministry "applied the principle of safe port correctly" when assigning the NGO to disembark at the Ancona and La Spezia ports.