Institutional resistance and professional ethos in the Italian asylum courts.

The study examines how judges employ rule interpretation and conversion to uphold fundamental rights despite executive efforts to limit judicial autonomy. Italy’s unique asylum adjudication system—where civil, not administrative, judges handle appeals—fosters a judicial ethos centered on rights protection rather than procedural correctness. This institutional design, combined with strong judicial independence, enables judges’ “institutional resistance” in the field of asylum, which occurs entirely within the institutional arena, including judicial interpretations of norms and the development of court rulings and broad legal principles. The cases of judicial responses to the interpretation of humanitarian protection – an Italian national form of protection – and the concept of safe countries of origin in asylum adjudication well illustrate institutional resistance in Italian asylum courts and its drivers. However, they also highlight the peculiarities of this case study, enriching the debate on judicial resistance with insights into the relevance and interaction between institutional settings, professional duties, and de facto judicial behavior. In brief, we argue that the case of asylum judges in Italy can be viewed as an example of “institutional resistance” within the typology proposed by Coman and Puleo (2025), albeit with some nuanced features. As regards the 1) “space of contestability” dimension, in our case, this institutional resistance can occur due to an institutional design and judicial governance that allows for high levels of judicial independence both externally and within the judiciary, despite the strong pressures experienced by asylum judges in recent years. As regards 2) “actors’ goal”, asylum judges are primarily driven by the aim of guaranteeing impartiality and fundamental rights of asylum seekers. Thus, this judicial behavior is mainly shaped by professional ethos and duties, and their conception of the role they exercise in implementing asylum policy. Finally, 3) the arena in which these resistance practices are framed within an institutional arena and within the day-by-day routines of judicial offices.