Migrants

Consulta slaps government on abuse of office and CPR

For the judges, detentions in the CPRs imply a 'physical subjection to the power of others', which affects the migrant's freedom

by Rome Editorial Staff

3 July 2025

Un’immagine di un Centro di permanenza per i rimpatri

3' min read

Key points

Lawyers: petition now to free migrants from Cpr
Viminal sources: already working on new rule on CPR
Opposition: now suspension of detention validations
Consulta: politicians intervene on loopholes in office abuse protection

3' min read

There comes a double shingle for the government after the Consulta's pronouncement, which deposited the grounds for the rulings on the repeal of the crime of abuse of office and the regulation of the Retention Centres for Repatriation: two symbolic government issues that are still causing debate. While rejecting the appeals by dispelling doubts of unconstitutionality, the judges sent a clear message in both questions of legitimacy posed: it must be the legislator who must intervene to redeem problems or regulatory gaps resulting from these measures. A warning came in particular on detentions in the CPRs, which for the judges imply a 'physical subjection to the power of others', which affects the migrant's freedom.

Although it declared the appeal by the Justice of the Peace in Rome inadmissible, the Court stressed, however, that the current rules do not respect the reservation of the law on personal freedom. But it is up to the legislator to supplement it, not the judges. Stressing a 'vulnus', the Constitutional Court spoke of a regulation that is completely unable to define, with sufficient precision, what are the 'modalities' of the restriction, that is, what are the rights of the persons detained during the period - which may not even be brief - in which they are deprived of their personal freedom. It is therefore a matter of a discipline left, almost entirely, to regulations and discretionary administrative measures.

Lawyers: petition now to free migrants from CPRs

After today's ruling by the Constitutional Court, which "clarified that detention in the CPRs entails subjection to the power of others, that is, a form of limitation of personal freedom", the Milanese lawyers Eugenio Losco, Mauro Straini and Gianluca Castagnino have "filed a request for the immediate release of one of our clients detained in the Ponte Galeria CPR" in Rome. This was explained by the same lawyers, clarifying that "in the absence of a legislative discipline of the methods of detention, we believe that all detainees" in the detention centres for repatriation "must be released"..

Viminal sources: on CPR already working on new rule

Faced with these reasons, reactions were not slow to arrive. From the Ministry of the Interior it was specified that 'the law establishing the Centres of Permanence for Repatriation dates back to '98, that is to the Turco Napolitano law' and therefore 'today's pronouncement highlights a shortcoming dating back in time without, however, questioning the legitimacy of the use of the CPRs for the repatriation of irregular migrants. On this point the offices of the Viminale - we learn - were already working on the drafting of a primary rule'.

Opposition: now suspension of detention validations

The opposition also intervened, now attacking: 'Now the justices of the peace should not pretend nothing and, in light of this ruling, they should suspend the validation of detention in these facilities while Parliament should immediately follow the Court's indication,' said the secretary of +Europa, Riccardo Magi. And for Alleanza Verdi Sinistra, 'these centres are a black hole of law'.

Consulta: politicians take action on abuse of office

The other issue that ended up under the lens of the constitutional magistrates is the cancellation of the abuse of office, which for years has sparked a debate on the so-called 'fear of signing', i.e. the fear of public officials to take responsibility for fear of being prosecuted criminally. On its repeal, the executive seemed to have definitively closed the political dispute in its favour, after the Court ruled last May that it did not find any unconstitutionality. However, the issue could be destined to reopen since the judges, in their motivations, speak of 'undoubted voids of penal protection resulting from the abolition of this crime'. And even in this case - they specify - it is a "question that exclusively concerns the political responsibility of the legislator, which cannot be justified before this Court by the yardstick of the constitutional and international parameters examined". These would therefore be gaps that Parliament in this case would be deputed to fill. Some plaintiffs had also questioned the compatibility of this repeal with the United Nations Convention against Corruption (the so-called Mérida Convention), from which the prohibition to repeal it in the absence of alternative measures would derive. But for the Constitutional Court there is no conflict and it is excluded that an obligation to criminalise abuse of office, an offence that, moreover, is not uniformly present in all the criminal law systems of the signatory states, can be derived from them.