The Appeals Court of Rome has ruled that the protocol between Rome and Tirana -- under which irregular migrants in Italy are transferred to an Italian-run center in Gjader, Albania, functioning as a repatriation center (CPR) -- does not apply to foreigners who have applied for international protection.
The implementation of a protocol between Rome and Tirana for the fast-track processing of asylum seekers at two facilities in Albania, one of which was converted to be exclusively used as a CPR after the plan was stymied by Italy's courts, is facing yet another legal hurdle.
An appeals judge is Rome has in fact failed to validate the detention of a foreigner at the Albania CPR, ruling that the Italy-Albania protocol cannot be implemented if a foreigner applies for international protection, in an eight-page sentence.
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The case of a Moroccan citizen
The case examined by the appeals court in Rome concerns a Moroccan citizen who was transferred to the Italian-run centre in Albania on April 11. The man, who has been reported as residing in Italy since 2021 and who received a criminal conviction in 2023, was issued an expulsion order by the prefecture of Naples on March 31.
However, during his stay at the CPR, the man said he wanted to apply for asylum. The request prompted a new hearing to validate his detention, which was under the jurisdiction of Rome's appeals court, which is responsible for international protection applicants.
The court thus ruled that the "application for international protection issued on Albanian territory, comparable to a border or transit area under the Italy-Albania Protocol and its procedures, must be considered as validly presented as an asylum request issued to the Italian State."
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The sentence
According to the court papers, the man expressed the intention of applying for international protection while he was being held at the CPR in Gjader. "The foreign citizen was forcibly taken" to the center in Albania and his status as a detainee awaiting to be expelled by Italian authorities remained unchanged, which made his application valid, said the judge."
"The valid presentation of the application for international protection changed the type of detention under which the foreign citizen is held, which is not aimed at carrying out his repatriation anymore but at examining his asylum request", the sentence said.
As a consequence, "he is not part of the categories considered by the Protocol" and therefore its procedures cannot be applied in his case, the appeals court said.
Neither the Protocol nor the law ratifying it provides for holding asylum applicants in the CPR of Gjader in Albania, the judge ruled.
With a decree approved in March 28, Premier Giorgia Meloni's government turned the center in Albania originally designed for accelerated border procedures for asylum applicants rescued in international waters into a hosting centre for migrants who are already in Italy and have received an expulsion order.
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