The Justice of the Peace of Syracuse stated that the Italian authorities have the obligation to inform the individuals disembarking in Italy on their right to apply for international protection and that the long detention periods on quarantine ships for public interest reasons results in deprivation of liberty and violation of the principle of non-refoulement.

The Justice of Peace underlined the failure of the authorities to translate the decree of rejection (entry ban/refoulement) issued by the Questura into a language known by the applicant, that no reasons had been given for the failure to translate the decree, as there appeared to be no findings or mentions of  the language known by the applicant, nor to his possible illiteracy, prejudicing the applicant's right of defence.

The Justice of Peace also pointed out that the Questura had failed to provide proof that it had fulfilled its obligation to inform the applicant of the possibility of applying for international protection: this fulfilment is mandatory and in case of failure, the rejection decree is unlawful, as well as the detention order."

In addition, the Justice of Peace mentioned the differences between the institutions of expulsion and the rejection by decree and stated that there has been an equalisation of these institutions from a procedural point of view, fact which has caused a "total structural and functional overlapping of the two institutions".

According to the Justice of Peace, the criterion to distinguish the measures is the time elapsed from the moment of the alleged illegal entry and depends on whether the Questore orders immediate or deferred rejection within a short time, otherwise the expulsion power of the Prefect takes precedent.

The Justice of Peace stated that the contested measure could not fall within the hypothesis of deferred refoulment, which means that the person is temporarily admitted to the country for public relief needs, and held that "the detention for entire weeks on quarantine ships," when there is no proof of a need to quarantine due to a Covid-19 positive case was contrary to the Constitution.  

The Justice of Peace concluded that the refoulment measure can be considered legitimate when it is adopted within a reasonable and short period of time from the moment of detention of the irregular foreigner. It stated that in the present case a 14 day quarantine on a ship was not considered a short period, thus the measure was considered unlawful.

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