The persons who otherwise need international protection according to Italian case law.
A recent sentence of the Court of Appeal of Lecce, on the subject of immigration and international protection of the foreigner, interprets and apply the article 14th of the Legislative Decree n. 251/2007. This Legislative Decree fulfils the directive 2004/83/CE on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection and the content of other protection granted. The interpretation done by the Court is in the light of the recent Sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The judgements’ line has been always restrictive in the interpretation of the “internal armed conflict” notion that is necessary, by law, in order to provide international protection. In fact this status was granted only to whom was involved in a situation of armed conflict according the classical definition of it made by the international humanitarian law and so, substantially, only in the presence of two opposite arrays.
This line, nevertheless, carried to the denial of the protection to anyone involved in a contest of deep peril caused by the constant presence of terroristic groups active in the country of the applicant creating, factually, a state of internal armed conflict.
The Court of Justice of the European Union with sentence of 16 May 2012, received at the Court on 7 June 2012, in the proceedings Aboubacar Diakité vs Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides, hold that: “it must be acknowledged that an internal armed conflict exists, for the purposes of applying that provision, if a State’s armed forces confront one or more armed groups or if two or more armed groups confront each other. It is not necessary for that conflict to be categorised as ‘armed conflict not of an international character’ under international humanitarian law; nor is it necessary to carry out, in addition to an appraisal of the level of violence present in the territory concerned, a separate assessment of the intensity of the armed confrontations, the level of organisation of the armed forces involved or the duration of the conflict.”
The Court of Appeal of Lecce with sentence of 07.08.2014 n° 579, has acknowledged this European line conceding the status of person “who otherwise needs international protection” to a foreign citizen who was in constant danger of “serious harm” consistent “in a serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict”.
The Court of Appeal of Lecce has given full accomplishment to the European Law line that says “In EU law, the interpretation to be given to the concept of ‘internal armed conflict’ must be independent of the definition used in international humanitarian law.”
– Euroleges ® –