Italy's highest court on Thursday asked the EU's Court of Justice to give an urgent ruling on the requirement, in the country, that asylum seekers from countries that are considered safe pay bail of just under €5,000. The bail is required to avoid detention while awaiting the outcome of their application for protection.
The Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court, on Thursday (February 8) asked the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule on whether new provisions regarding the detention of asylum seekers during the examination of their request for international protection are in conflict with European and international law.
Specifically, the European court has been asked to give an urgent ruling on the requirement that asylum seekers from countries that are considered safe pay bail of just under €5,000 to avoid being detained while awaiting for the outcome of their application.
Two requests go to EU Court of Justice
The request from Italy to examine its new migration policy came about during court examinations of a case involving Tunisian asylum seekers in Sicily. Their cases were being heard by a court in Catania which rejected the detention orders placed on the Tunisians. The Italian Interior Ministry has been appealing against the rejection of the detention orders.
The detention orders were written in to law following the so-called 'Cutro decree', which followed last year's February 26 shipwreck off Cutro, in which 94 migrants are known to have died.
Sicilian judge says decree contravenes a 2013 European directive
However, this new provision has already been contested in the Italian courts. More specifically, by Judge Iolanda Apostolico and other judges at the specialized immigration section of Catania court, who rejected orders for asylum seekers from Tunisia to be detained at a new pre-removal facility in the Sicilian port city of Pozzallo on the grounds they contravened a 2013 European directive laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection.
In the two interlocutory orders of around 20 pages each, the joint civil sections of the high court asked the EU court whether the provisions of the Italian decree run counter to the 2013 European directive and European Parliament norms.
According to the lawyer representing six of the ten migrants detained by the Ragusa police commissioner and later released by the Catania judges, by issuing these requests, the Court of Cassation "has confirmed interpretative doubts that emerged around the issuing of the Cutro decree. Here in Italy the laws are not clear, since they should be compatible with international law and it is not clear whether they are. For this reason, the Supreme Court has sent the question to the EU Court" to rule on.
Supporters of the idea of asylum seekers paying 'bail' note that there is an "emergency situation" on the Italian island of Lampedusa and that it is difficult to handle protection requests as migrants arrive, and they should instead be handled in purpose built centers elsewhere.