An Italian coast guard vessel arrives to transfer migrants, who were intercepted at sea and later detained at a reception facility in Albania, to Italy after a court in Rome overturned their detention orders, in Shengjin, Albania, October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga/File Photo
ROME (Reuters) - Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said Italian judges had failed to comply with EU law in a ruling last week that undermined Italy's flagship plan to house asylum seekers in Albania, a decision the government said it has appealed.
Last week, a court in Rome said a group of 12 people housed in Italian migrant facilities in Albania had to be brought to Italy because their countries of origin could not be considered safe based on a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling.
Only male migrants from so-called "safe countries" included in a government list are eligible to stay in the Albanian facilities, but the ECJ said a non-EU state cannot be declared safe unless its entire territory is deemed free of danger.
The Italian judges' ruling provoked the ire of right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Nordio, who said it was up to the politicians to declare a country safe.
"If you read (the court orders) ... there is no comprehensive, exhaustive, or case-specific reasoning regarding these individual asylum seekers, and therefore this is not in line with the European Court judgment," Nordio said.
He told lawmakers in parliament that under the EU ruling - which did not directly refer to Italy - courts must provide solid explanations for decisions on why a country of origin cannot be deemed safe.
Looking to make it harder for courts to challenge her plans, Meloni on Monday passed a decree to upgrade the legal status of the list of safe countries to a proper act of law rather than a lesser ministerial decree.
The government has also appealed the Rome tribunal decision at the Supreme Court, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told daily Corriere della Sera, saying that would be an occasion to propose an "unambiguous" interpretation of the law.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
