Those who arrive in Italy from illegal immigrants can make use of their defense of the patronage against the public coffers, with numbers that have exploded in recent years. Not only that: the requests for damage to the state are multiply, after the blockage of ship Eighteen and the shipwreck of Cutro, which now also promises to be politically exploited.
The normal Italian citizen cannot do anything without the tax code. If, on the contrary, you are a young African who comes from Mali, before the Court of Milan and ask for the “legal patronage at the expense of the State to guarantee the exercise of the right to defense” you can obtain it by presenting only the name, surname, date of birth and sex. At the beginning the judges had opposed with a simple motivation: “The applicant had not even indicated a stable tax domicile in Italy thus making impossible to carry out the checks on his income situation”. Not insignificant detail. Only with an annual income of less than 11,746.68 euros are the right to free patronage. But the rule lasted little: last October 22, the Court of Cassation overturned Milan’s decision by establishing that the State can pay the legal costs of the non -EU citizen even without tax code. A curious tip of the iceberg on the wave of free sponsorships for foreigners, which the state must pay, increasing dizzying from 9,916 of 2003 to 48,937 of 2022. The data are part of a report by the Ministry of Justice to Parliament, which will be updated in June with the last two -year period. The forecast is of a further boom. In 2022 the total expenditure paid by the State for free patronage, including Italian citizens, amounted to 212,509,592 euros collected for 92.5 percent by the office defenders. Foreigners with free legal assistance represented 24.5 percent of the total. The relative cost is about 52 million euros. “The number of foreigners interested in the benefit, in absolute terms, was always increasing” reads the Ministry’s report. And “it is highlighted, in relation to the number of foreigners allowed, in the two-year period 2021-2022, an increase of 59 percent”. According to the ministerial tables from 2011 to 2022, foreigners were 205,282. If we calculate an average percentage of 22 percent, compared to the total that includes Italians, the expenditure in the last ten years is 407 million euros.
The cake is large and in the city like Milan the share of patronage, according to the data of the Bar Association, touches 50 percent. On the net there are specialized studies “for foreigners”, “immigrant lawyer”, “permits” with an average cost procone for free patronage paid by the state of 1,268 euros. The funds for the current year, however, ended and from October the parcels of the lawyers have not been welded causing a “escape” of office defenders. Although the funds are scarce, this legal intervention has also mobilized non -governmental organizations such as Caritas and Save the Children with branches for appeals against no to residence permits. And the same goes for the patronage of CGIL and CISL.
In the end he always pays trousers, as in the new case of compensation for damages caused “by the restriction of freedom” of the Eritrean Kefela Mulugeta Gebru aboard the Diciotti shipblocked in the port of Catania for ten days in 2018, at the behest of the then Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, who had denied the landing asking for an immediate reidist reidort of migrants. On 6 March, the united civil sections of the Court of Cassation gave reason to Eritrean claiming that the landing must take place “in the shortest time reasonably possible” and “the action of the government, even if motivated by political reasons, can never be considered subtracted from the jurisdictional union”. High officials of the Public Administration explain to Panorama “that the Diciotti sentence has affirmed a sort of right to landing, even if it arrives illegally, moreover immediate”.
The Cassation flies that migrants had been rescued in Maltese jurisdiction and risks opening a race to compensation: «Only on board the eighteen were in 177, but there are other similar cases. The paradox is that from illegal immigration, it derives, a transitory responsibility of the state ». The amount of the damage will be established by the Court of Appeal. The requests submitted for the 41 open causes of the Diciotti case vary from 42 thousand to 71 thousand euros. Only one arrived in the Court of Cassation, but the sentence could open a chasm. The estimates indicate a maximum of 2.9 million euros in compensation and the previous one risks widening to other cases. The migrants do not land by Open Arms in 2019, although Salvini was acquitted of the accusation of kidnapping, could ask up to four thousand euros per day of damages. A disbursement for public coffers that would be around nine million euros. “The appeal of Eritrean had been rejected three times: in the first and second degree and there was also the opposite opinion of the attorney general” the lawyer Giuseppe Loffrida, a maritime law expert, points out to Panorama. “If the principle passes that the migrant is limited in freedom every time he is on board a ship awaiting landing, which is not sent to the nearest port, in Lampedusa or at most in Sicily and Calabria, thousands of appeals will be unleashed”.
In the public administration it is confirmed that “The sentence creates uncertainty and the question of the assignment of ports far to NGO ships with migrants (by the Viminale ed) could be raised, which also involves an extra week of navigation”. The risk is that the days of navigation “imposed” and strongly criticized by non -governmental organizations fall within the “limitation of personal freedom”. Loffrida comments: «Once upon a time there was the magnet effect of the ships too many close to the North African coast. Now migrants are attracted to free patronage and compensation for damage ».
On March 5, the preliminary hearing was held for the shipwreck of Cutro, against six graduates of the yellow flames and the coast guard. The wave of requests for the establishment of the civil party, which is expected, aims at millionaire compensation. Another piece of the judicial “business” linked to the phenomenon of illegal immigration. Apart from the survivors and the families of the victims, who are “offended people”, the furnishings include NGO of the sea, pro migrant associations, political parties, parliamentarians and even two smugglers. Francesco Vetere, defender of one of the defendants, points out to Panorama: «In the trial of the smugglers, who were condemned, 17 civil parties were present, including the Ministry of the Interior. Against the forces of the State, the requests of the civil party will probably reach a hundred ».
The same family members of the survivors know that from the smugglers they do not get anything unlike the state. And he adds: “The political aspect of the affair stands out with consequent exploitation of the same trial”. On 10 December the Pachistani Hasab Hussain, at 16, and Khalid Arslan, at 11 years old, considered smugglers, were sentenced. In the 2023 tragedy 94 migrants died, including children. Salvatore Perri, a criminal lawyer, argued that “they are offended people like the others. Those who are called to help must save everyone. In addition, they were acquitted of the crime of culpable shipwreck because they never ruled the boat ». Among the first to send the act of constitution of the civil party is the union of the military, who asks for 100 thousand euros for image damage. The associations, on the other hand, are guided by the NGOs of the Sea Watch, Emergency, Louis Michel, Mediterranea, Sos Humanity and Sos Mediterranee. “The judgment cannot stop for lower degree officials and every decision, even those of the higher authorities, must be taken into consideration by going up the chain of command” they explain in a press release. The founders of Mediterranea, such as Luca Casarini, who waved the flag of “offended part” in the trial for the shipwreck of Cutro, are under accusation in Ragusa for aggravated aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Also Communist Refoundation, Italian Left, Arci, ASGI, The legal legal rib Pro Immigration financed by George Soros, are “offended parties”. Ilaria Cucchi and other Pd parliamentarians, the union of democratic financiers and associations such as Codacons are in the same list, which will face itself in the hearing on May 12th. With access to the documents of the file, parliamentarians will be able to exploit the process politically. “I hope they do not ask to constitute a civil party” hopes vetere. “Otherwise they would be scripted”.
