Order of the Court of Bari, I Civil Section, 3-9 January 2014

Through this order, the Court of Bari decided on the provisional measures for ensuring human rights protection within a centre for the administrative detention of irregular migrants (so called centre for identification and expulsion-CIE). These measures had been requested through an actio popularis (to which had joined, later, the Municipality of Bari and the Puglia Region), brought against the Ministry of Interiors and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Remembering the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court stated, first, that the competence to decide on the case was of the ordinary judiciary, and not the administrative one, because the alleged facts amounted to violations of fundamental human rights. Then, the Court examined the legal nature of administrative detention and concluded that, even in the absence of special legislative provisions, administrative detention is subjected to the same principles applicable for the protection of the rights of persons in prison, including the right to receive medical assistance and the right to freely communicate with persons outside the CIE.