Why the Constitutional Court rejected the CPRs: now it's up to the judges to free the 'hostages'
The sensational sentence
Now what happens? It happens that the CPRs are illegitimate and the judges will have to comply. The hostages must be freed.
A sensational ruling by the Constitutional Court has hit the government (or rather: governments, this one and several previous governments) by contesting the legitimacy of the CPRs, that is, the centers in which migrants are locked up for months: these are centers that are very similar to prisons, but with even fewer guarantees for the detainees.
The Court writes: “The detention of foreigners, therefore, as a measure affecting personal freedom, cannot be adopted outside the guarantees of Article 13 of the Constitution, being attributable to other restrictions of personal freedom” . And then it adds: “ The public interests affecting the matter of immigration cannot, in fact, undermine the universal character of personal freedom, which, like the other rights that the Constitution proclaims inviolable, belongs to individuals not as participants in a specific political community but as human beings ”. Beyond the technical aspects of this ruling, which we explain in the article by Gianfranco Schiavone , there are three things that are striking in these few lines.
The first is the assimilation of CPRs to other forms of detention by the State, that is, to prisons. The second is the proclamation of the right to personal freedom proclaimed by Article 13 of the Constitution. The third – fundamental from the cultural point of view and the affirmation of civilization – is the explanation that a migrant and a refugee are simply human beings: like the writer of this newspaper, like every single judge of the Court, like the Prime Minister herself. Human beings. To better understand the meaning of this sentence, it is necessary to transcribe Article 13 of the Constitution to which the sentence refers.
It says: " Personal freedom is inviolable. No form of detention, inspection or personal search is permitted, nor any other restriction of personal freedom, except by reasoned order of the judicial authority and only in the cases and ways provided for by law". The Constitutional Court warns the government: the current law does not work, it must be changed and the new law must fall within the spirit of article 13. Now what happens? What happens is that the CPRs are illegitimate and the judges will have to adapt . The hostages must be freed.
l'Unità
