A leaked email has shown that Italian leftists within the judicial branch are seeking to derail Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s immigration policies amid the standoff over removing illegals to Albania.
On Sunday, the Rome-based newspaper Il Tempo published an email from Marco Patarnello, the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, to members of the Democratic Magistracy, a left-wing faction within the National Association of Magistrates.
In his message to fellow magistrates, Patarnello warned that Meloni’s political power in Italy must be challenged by the judiciary, such as the decision to send illegals back to Italy from detention centres in Albania.
The prosecutor argued that Meloni is a difficult opponent because, unlike her predecessors, such as former PM Silvio Berlusconi, she has no criminal investigations against her and is consequently more difficult to exert pressure on.
“Undoubtedly, the attack on the judiciary has never been so strong, perhaps not even in Berlusconi’s time. In any case, today, it is a much more dangerous and insidious attack for many reasons. First of all, because Meloni has no judicial investigations against her and therefore, she does not move for personal interests but for political visions, and this makes her much stronger,” the email said.
Patarnello claimed that Meloni’s government is also more cohesive than those in the past, and thus, “the political force it can express is enormous and can really question a constitutional structure by overturning key principles that we considered intangible.”
The deputy Supreme Court prosecutor said magistrates should unite to solidify their power base and confront the supposed power imbalance, declaring that “we absolutely must remedy this.”
The email has been taken as evidence by Meloni’s allies that judicial activists are attempting to use the legal system to stymie her government and by extension, the will of the voters.
Leader of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy in the parliament, Tommaso Foti, said the email “confirms the propensity of a part of the judiciary to invade the field of politics.”
Lucio Malan, who leads her party in the Senate, said that Patarnello’s email is “a disconcerting call to arms” and shows that magistrates seek to have a “political role” in Italy.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio called for an “immediate inspection by the Ministry of Justice regarding Marco Paternello’s behaviour.”
The growing tension between the government in Rome and the judicial branch in Italy came after judges, citing a decision by the European Court of Justice, found that the government’s decision to classify countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt as “safe” for migrants to be returned to was unlawful given that not all of the territory could be guaranteed not to be subject to persecution, torture or indiscriminate violence.
The ruling meant that 12 migrants sent to Albanian detention centres earlier this week were shipped back to Italy. The ruling has also thrown the illegal migrant deterrence strategy into doubt and potentially sparked a constitutional crisis.
On Monday, Meloni will gather her cabinet to approve a decree law listing the countries Rome has determined to be “safe” for deportation. Meloni has argued that this move should solve the legal hurdles; however, it is unclear if judges in Italy or potentially at the European level will agree.