The head of state Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte were present when Mammone spoke out against the Minniti decree of 2017, later converted into Law 46 of 2017, which, moreover, ironically had the objective of “speeding up the procedures for international protection”.
Except that, in parallel with the creation of specialized sections on immigration, the new legislation has also eliminated the appeal process. It allows the applicant who has been denied protection by the specialized section instead to turn to the Court of Cassation within thirty days.
Thus, in 2016 only 374 appeals had been lodged for international protection at the Supreme Court, while today that number has really undergone an “exponential increase”, to use Mammone’s words, reaching in the year just ended at 10 341.
It is almost 28 times more, and growing steadily year after year, given that in 2017 there were 1 089 and in 2018 already 6 026. The reason, in fact, is all in the reform, as the President of the Supreme Court explained, given that “the appeals in question, first diluted between the Courts of Appeal, have all flowed to the Court of Cassation, burdening the Court excessively.
The avalanche of “protective” appeals has pushed up the burden of civil proceedings of the Cassation, which has increased by 16,1 percent since 2014.
In fact, Mammone had already underlined in January 2019, at the inauguration of the previous judicial year, the “worrying” boom of appeals by asylum seekers. And the vice president of the CSM, David Ermini, had raised the alert, explaining that that sensational surge was likely to become a real “emergency” for the Cassation, aggravating the “unsustainable load” of cases already pending.
It appears to have been an easy prediction, confirmed in fact again this year in Mammone’s speech.