The Bologna Court of Appeal has finally expressly pronounced on the particular methods of transport through the Free Port of Trieste.
In the case brought before the Court, the Road Police had ordered the detention of a Turkish truck claiming that it was carrying out an illegal transport, since the tractor was already in Italy before the date of issue of the Italy-Turkey bilateral authorization of international transport.
The police report was challenged before the Court of Modena, and its annulment was requested as well as the immediate suspension of the enforceability of the detention. The Court, however, rejected plaintiff’s application, and even stated that the police records should have been challenged before the Prefetto and not before the Court.
However, the Judge of Appeal has declared the voidness of the decision of the Court of Modena and has consequently annulled the challenged police records, both for procedural reasons and thanks to the arguments brought in Plaintiff’s defence. As for the procedural aspect, the voidness of the judgment of first instance was declared due to the fact that the case had not been decided by reading the ordering part of the decision at the hearing. Confirming its line of decisions, the Court of Appeal also stated that the challenge of the police report for illegal transport had been correctly filed before the Court.
As for the merits, the Court of Appeal has expressly established the legitimacy of multimodal transport between Italy and Turkey, which stems from the 1995 and 2000 bilateral protocols. The distinctive feature of this kind of transport is that for each shipment only the semitrailer is transported by sea, while the land routes are carried out thanks to the towing by tractors which remain on the Italian or Turkish shore to be used in other subsequent transports. In the present case, therefore, the Court ruled as irrelevant the fact that the tractor was on Italian territory before the date of issue of the bilateral authorization, because, as proven, in that period of time the tractor was towing another trailer.
The judgment in question is particularly relevant when one considers that since 2006 the Road Police in northern Italy have issued several notices of illegal transport, since they considered as unlawful the fact that the Turkish tractor remained on Italian territory and towed the different semitrailers which were unloaded in the port of Trieste.
Hopefully this judgement will put an end to an unlawful interpretation of the legislation which has for too long caused extensive economic damage to Turkish carriers.
(Trieste Office – Federica Fantuzzi – 0039 (0)40 7600281)
