The ongoing trial against Salvini has sparked endless debates about the many issues related to immigration: border defense, ethnic replacement, rescue of shipwrecked individuals, humanitarianism, pushbacks, and so on. However, in this context, we focus on a distinctly separate issue: we ask whether an actual crime was committed, meaning a clear violation of a legal provision, or whether this is a case of the judiciary overstepping into the political realm using a legal pretext.
Salvini is not on trial for the matters being debated, but for kidnapping: the issue is not whether to welcome irregular immigrants, but whether the delay in disembarking the immigrants on the Open Arms was a political or legal matter, and thus whether it falls under the jurisdiction of political bodies or the courts.
Even if we think the worst of Salvini’s political actions, it’s clear that being a bad politician is not a crime, and therefore it is NOT the judiciary's role to make that judgment—it's the voters' responsibility. This is the core of the discussion.
Article 605 of the Penal Code states: "Anyone who deprives another person of personal liberty shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to eight years" (followed by aggravating factors and so forth). Now, can delaying a disembarkation be considered as falling under this article? Certainly not, it's obvious. According to this odd interpretation, if a foreigner is prevented from entering Italy and going wherever they please, is that kidnapping? Since all states, from the U.S. to Japan, including all of Europe, impose entry limits, does that mean they are all guilty of kidnapping?
Salvini is not accused of refusing entry to irregular immigrants (a crime that does not exist), but of kidnapping. Yet, as far as I know, the law forbids entering the country without permission. Why can a foreigner be refused entry at land borders, but those arriving by boat must be allowed in? Is there a law that establishes this oddity? Why can a state refuse to allow a ship into its territorial waters, but not if it carries illegal immigrants? This is a political decision, not a legal issue.
A second accusation against Salvini is the omission of official duties because he allegedly did not designate a disembarkation port for a certain time. However, I don't believe the law sets a mandatory deadline for assigning a disembarkation point, so I don't see the crime.
The responsibility of the entire government is also considered. There’s no doubt that Salvini was leading the action, but other government members did not oppose it, meaning the action should politically be attributed to the entire government. It's true they later claimed they disagreed, and Conte even wrote a letter urging disembarkation, but there’s no evidence anyone opposed Salvini or took any action to intervene in the disembarkation, which eventually happened due to a prosecutor's intervention through the seizure of the ship, again based on technicalities and broad, abnormal interpretations of legal norms.
Moreover, the event was not an isolated incident but part of a policy line shared by the entire government. Political acts are always attributed to the entire government, not individual members, unless the government is unaware. In reality, the judiciary cannot prosecute a government for its political line, so they prosecute individual members who implement that line: this seems like a rather peculiar idea. However, this is a secondary issue, as the main point is the lack of the crime of kidnapping.
It’s not that the judiciary is united, as some claim it’s all left-leaning: in fact, the constant contradictions and the fact that sentences for politicians often clash show, beyond reasonable doubt, that ideology, which varies, is followed, not the law, which is always the same. There are judges prosecuting Salvini, others not prosecuting Salvini or other politicians for similar facts, and still others even seizing NGO ships. If judges applied the law, they would all act in the same way.
And then, there have been many delays in disembarkation. Why is Salvini the only one being prosecuted, while other judges are even seizing NGO ships? And who seriously believes Salvini will spend six years in jail?
The strangest accusation seems to be that Salvini delayed the disembarkation to gain popularity and votes: but in a democracy, politicians are elected precisely because they act according to the will of the voters.
Salvini's case is similar to the endless Negotiation trial, which eventually led to nothing. There is no crime of negotiation (just as there is no crime for disembarkation delay), so it shifted to "threats to state organs" (but what threat?), just as in Salvini's case it shifted to kidnapping (but how could this apply in this case?). And in the negotiation case, the intermediaries are prosecuted, not those for whom they negotiate, just as Salvini is prosecuted while the government that adopted that policy line is not.
It seems clear that in both cases, this is one of many attempts by judges to influence politics. With this, I’m not judging Salvini’s actions positively or negatively, but merely observing that what he did during the Open Arms disembarkation is not even remotely a crime of kidnapping.