Migrants on the way to a ferry that will take them from the island of Lampedusa
Image: AFP
A judge opposes the Meloni government’s latest asylum decree. Then Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini published a video showing the lawyer at a protest.
EIs Iolanda Apostolico, a 59-year-old judge in Catania, Sicily, merely fulfilling her mandate as the locally responsible representative of Italy’s independent judiciary? Or is she a political activist disguised in a judge’s robe? The recent dispute over migration policy in Italy is not just about this specific question. But also about the suspicion expressed by the opposition that the center-right coalition led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is after unpopular judges and is trying to bring the judiciary “in line”.
The background to the dispute are two decisions by the judge. For the first time, Apostolico ordered on September 29 that four Tunisian migrants must be released from the new deportation center in Pozzallo. Pozzallo is located on the southern coast of Sicily, from where ferries run to the island of Lampedusa.
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