Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have launched a campaign calling for reforms to the European Convention on Human Rights and its associated court to restore the right of countries to remove foreign criminals from their midst.
Nine European Union member states argued this week that the world has fundamentally changed since the post-war conditions when human rights laws surrounding migration were codified, resulting in a system that is not up to the realities of an increasingly globalised world and which is often exploited by criminal aliens.
Following a meeting in Rome between Prime Minister Frederiksen and Prime Minister Meloni, the Italian government released a letter signed by nine nations, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, calling for reforms to how the European Court of Human Rights interperets the Convention on migration.
Arguing that current interpretations have skewed far from the Convention’s original intent, the leaders said: “We believe that the development in the Court’s interpretation has, in some cases, limited our ability to make political decisions in our own democracies. And thereby affected how we as leaders can protect our democratic societies and our populations against the challenges facing us in the world today.”
They called for increased latitude for national governments to set their own deportation policies, specifically in terms of those guilty of violent or drug-related crimes, and greater control over who should be allowed to be deported. They also called for taking measures to “counter hostile states that are trying to use our values and rights against us. For example, by instrumentalising migrants at our borders,” as has been accused of countries like Belarus, Russia, and Turkey.
“We know that this is a sensitive discussion. Although our aim is to safeguard our democracies, we will likely be accused of the opposite,” they said, noting that their top priority must be the well-being of their citizens.
Commenting on the joint effort, Danish PM Frederiksen stressed that “it is simply not a human right to come to Denmark and kill,” adding that trust in Europe’s international legal order will “erode” if the ECHR continues to stymie member states from removing hardened criminals.
Prime Minister Meloni said: “We have the duty to defend our citizens, our values, our democracy. We are leaders of societies that protect human rights, yet too often the European Convention on Human Rights is interpreted in a way that prevents states from expelling foreign criminals or protecting their borders. We cannot accept this.
“Defending rights also means defending security, legality, and freedom. Italy is there and leads this change,” she added.
Violent migrant criminals and even terrorists have often appealed to the ECHR to avoid being returned to their homelands, often arguing that they would face persecution in their native lands.
Meloni’s government in Rome has also been at loggerheads with pro-open borders judges in Italy over her plans to send illegal migrants to an offshore processing centre in Albania rather than allowing them to remain in Italy while their asylum cases are considered.
The case, which largely hinges on who can determine which countries are safe to deport migrants back to, is currently being considered by the European Court of Justice.
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