The inherent illegitimacy within the informal readmission carried out by Italian police authorities at the border between Italy and Slovenia, the inhuman and degrading treatments associated with chain readmissions to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the concurrent denial of access to the political asylum procedure give rise to a right to compensation for the recipient of such procedures.
With the recent ruling dated May 9, 2023, the Court of Rome reiterated principles already affirmed in the ruling of the Court of Rome on January 18, 2021, by granting the appeal of a Pakistani citizen. Despite entering Italy on October 17, 2020, and expressing the intent to seek international protection, the individual had been readmitted to Slovenia and subsequently to Croatia and then rejected to Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the mechanism of informal readmissions that was particularly implemented during that period.
Through this decision, the Court reaffirmed the illegitimacy of the readmission procedure implemented at the Italian eastern border based on an agreement signed between Italy and Slovenia in 1996, never ratified by the Italian Parliament. This procedure, which the Italian Government suspended following the January 2021 decision, decided to reinstate from November 2022, albeit not formally towards those seeking international protection.
The Court observed that this procedure “must first and foremost be qualified as unlawful and therefore illegitimate due to its conflict with domestic law, also of constitutional status, and international law, with a value as a source superior under Article 117 of the Constitution. Such conduct was also carried out despite the responsible authorities being aware, or at least they could (and should) have been aware, of the consequences of the readmission itself, in light of the numerous cited reports already existing at that time.”
In particular, the conduct, in clear violation of international, European, and domestic regulations governing access to the asylum procedure, is illegitimate because it is executed without delivering any provision to the individuals and without examining individual situations, thus clearly violating the right to defense and the right to an effective remedy.
Furthermore, it is accomplished through de facto detention without any judicial authority order, and last but not least, it is in blatant contradiction with the non-refoulement obligation.
The ruling also acknowledges the comprehensive demonstration of facts that have been proven in court thanks to collaboration with PIC (Pravni center za varstvo človekovih pravic in okolja – Legal Centre for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment), depicting the immediate chain of readmissions suffered by the appellant from Italy to Slovenia and from Slovenia to Croatia, then his presence in Bosnia. The solidity of documentary evidence produced during this trial marks a significant step forward in reconstructing the execution modalities of readmissions and effectively confirms what was already brought to the attention of the Rome Court in the proceeding decided on January 18, 2021, relating to another case of readmission that was, however, weaker from a probative perspective.
Moreover, thanks to the intervention in court of witnesses Elisa Oddone and Diego Saccora, the ruling evaluated the strict proof of harm, consisting of the degrading conditions in which the appellant was rejected to Bosnia, risking his safety.
The Court thus concluded by recognizing that “the described illegitimate, blameworthy conduct of the Administration has caused unjust harm to the appellant, exposing him to serious and multiple violations of his fundamental rights.”
The decision, obtained by lawyers Caterina Bove and Anna Brambilla of ASGI, was the result of a collaborative effort involving various actors engaged in countering violence against people in motion along the Balkan route. These actors include the network Ri-Volti ai Balcani (particularly Gianfranco Schiavone and Agostino Zanotti), journalist Elisa Oddone, the NGO “Lungo la rotta balcanica,” the association PIC (particularly Ursa Regvar), the Medea project of ASGI, ICS Ufficio Rifugiati, Linea d’ombra, the Center for Peace in Zagreb, Anela Dedic, and all activists working for human rights protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina and along the transit routes of individuals.
