In its judgments nos. 616 and 617 of 18 March 2026, the Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) for Veneto set a landmark judicial precedent by ruling that the police headquarters in Venice and Vicenza are responsible for serious and systemic failings in granting access to the asylum procedure.

The two collective appeals that led to these rulings had been lodged on 17 March 2025 by a number of civil society organisations active in the protection of migrants’ rights, namely the rights of asylum seekers: ASGI, Emergency, Lungo la Rotta Balcanica and CADUS for the Venice area; ASGI and CADUS for the Vicenza district. The organisations argued that the bureaucratic barriers and staff shortages were not merely isolated incidents but the result of structural organisational choices by the public administration, such as those intended to prevent the exercise of a fundamental right.

After upholding both appeals as admissible, the Regional Administrative Court found that the police administrations had systematically breached the statutory deadlines in the international protection procedure. The judges ruled that the organisational structure of the offices is neither suitable nor sufficient to efficiently perform its tasks, highlighting a disproportion between the resources deployed and the ‘organisational effort required’ by law.

The Court ordered the police headquarters to restore legality within 90 days, through a gradual reduction in processing times, the clearing of the backlog, and the introduction of “an efficient management of the application process, facilitating access for those concerned to police headquarters and ensuring the prompt collection of applications for international protection”.

The significance of these rulings is twofold. On the one hand, they restore dignity and certainty to thousands of vulnerable people who have been left in legal limbo for years due to a dysfunctional system. On the other hand, they represent a turning point in the Italian legal landscape: this is, in fact, the first time that a ‘public class action’ of this nature has been successfully brought by civil society organisations.

These judgments represent a glimmer of hope in bringing about concrete change to the inefficiency that characterises the management of asylum procedures throughout Italy.