It is right to change the 2002
Bossi-Fini law to grant new asylum rights in the face f global
changes, former foreign minister, Hose Speaker and rightwing
National Alliance party leader Gianfranco Fini, one of the
architects of the law, told ANSA Saturday after Cabinet
Secretary Alfredo Mantovano told La Stampa the government was
aiming for changes to crack down on smugglers while boosting
legal channels to migration.
The 2002 law, whose other architect was former rightwing League
leader and reform minister Umberto Bossi, introduced criminal
sanctions for persons caught illegally entering the country or
who return after being expelled.
Fini told ANSA: "The so-called Bossi-Fini law has been in force
for 20 years, it must be changed because the origin of the
migratory phenomenon has changed profoundly.
"It today has global dimensions and is increasingly correlated
to the moral duty, as well as the international right, of
guaranteeing asylum rights to those fleeing war, risks of
genocide, natural catastrophes, and mass violations of
fundamental human rights."
Mantovano, who has the immigration brief in Premier Giorgia
Meloni's government, told La Stampa earlier that the government
was aiming for a new law combining "toughness, yes, but only
against traffickers, while all the rest serves to facilitate
legal entries.
"Our position is balanced." Mantovano went on, saying that the
Bossi-Fini law has now become a "Harlequin law, and we have to
do something new, but calmly and in a well thought-through
manner".
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