Migrants face discrimination within Italian legal system

idi euaResearch by the Italian association Antigone has found that foreigners suffer discrimination in the Italian legal system.

Research by the Italian association Antigone has found that foreigners suffer discrimination in the Italian legal system.

Linguistic barriers and access to lawyers and precautionary measures are some of the main problems foreigners suffer within the Italian legal system, according to a study conducted by the Italian association Antigone.

Federica Brioschi, a researcher for the association, wrote that, in Italy, ”despite a legal framework that is in portions rather demanding, in the actual facts it is difficult to say that foreigners are ensured access to justice and the same right to legal defense as that guaranteed to Italian citizens. The regulations call for it, for procedures often go in the opposite direction, as those to often visit police stations and courtrooms.”

Discrimination against foreigners

The study noted that ”one of the phases of criminal procedures in which individual rights are most at risk is the one from arrest to the first appearance before a judge”, a period of time ”that could be only a few hours or four days, after which the defendant undergoes a hearing for the validation of the arrest”.

One of the projects in which Antigone is involved found ”that those arrested during the night arrive at the hearing the next morning, stunned and confused after not sleeping the entire night”, and that ”they often only have a few minutes with their lawyer”.

Another of the projects found that foreigners are arrested by the police more often than Italians and a recent report by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) noted that, in Italy, ”28 percent of respondents from sub-Saharan Africa and 32 percent of those from North Africa had been stopped by the police at least one in the five years prior to the study and that over half (60 and 71 percent) saw their being stopped by the police as the result of ethnic profiling and not a consequence of their behavior.” Data on arrests seem to confirm this.

Lack of interpreters

Antigone also noted that one of the major problems faced by foreigners is their lack of Italian language skills and lower awareness of how the judicial system works. ”The right to make use of translators and interpreters should break down these barriers”, but ”despite the fact that regulations call for them in all phases of the proceedings, most of the time they are only present in courtrooms”.

Moreover, for them ”there is no real verification of their skills since there is no national guild”, and very low pay ”is one of the aspects that affects the quality of the work most and that results in almost no professional interpreters working in courts” in Italy.

Fonte: Infomigrants – 01/03/2018

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