Migrants, Consulta agrees with Piantedosi: the arrest of NGO ships was correct

ROME – The questions of legitimacy raised about the government’s decision to sanction those who carry out humanitarian activities at sea and to delegate, in fact, to Libya the rejection of people fleeing risks and persecution are unfounded. Thus the Constitutional Court’s rejection of the findings on the Piantedosi decree that had ignited the political debate around the rescue of migrants and the restrictive policies of the right.

Not only that. It is neither unreasonable nor disproportionate, in the opinion of the Consulta, to have foreseen the detention of the ship.

That punitive measure - contested in court by NGOs - according to the judges of the Constitutional Court sanctions "those transgressions that undermine the very purpose of safeguarding human life at sea, inherent in the SAR Convention, and that prove capable of compromising, in the absence of legitimate reasons, the system of cooperation that this Convention has established".

It was the Brindisi court that raised the question of legitimacy before the Constitutional Court, following the appeal by the NGO Sos Méditerranée against another administrative detention of the rescue ship, resulting from the Piantedosi decree.

The case had started from the rescue of February 9, 2024: when the crew had managed to save 261 people, including almost 70 minors, in several stages. Too many interventions, according to the Viminale, for which the communication of the Libyan Coast Guard is authoritative, which claims that it was the rescuers who 'interrupted' their maneuvers. Due to the new rules, the "Ocean Viking" was stopped but Judge Roberta Marra rejected that provision, and disavowing the Piantedosi decree, freed the ship. A ruling confirmed shortly after during the evaluation of the merits: when the judge accepted the exceptions of constitutionality appealed by the lawyers Francesca Cancellaro and Dario Belluccio, of the defense team of Sos Méditerranée.