Tribunal of Trieste, 14 September 2026

The Tribunale di Trieste (judge Dr Marco Brandolin) authorises a Georgian national to remain in the national territory until the appeal is decided against the rejection by the Commissione territoriale of Trieste (Udine section), issued in the accelerated procedure under Article 42(1), point (j), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1348. The pivot of the decree is the relationship between the accelerated procedure based on the recognition rate and the individual assessment of special procedural needs linked to gender.

The duty of individual assessment within the 20% threshold

The application had been registered on 11 August 2026 — therefore fully under the Procedures Regulation — the applicant heard on 21 August and the decision adopted on 24 August. The order for the accelerated procedure is said to have been communicated immediately after registration, with reasoning limited to the percentage datum alone relating to Georgian nationals, "without separate consideration of the applicant's personal condition and of the vulnerability profiles connected with the reported experience of domestic violence". The decree draws from this the first ground of challenge as regards the fumus:

it appears necessary to verify, on the merits, whether the administrative authority correctly complied with the obligations to identify special procedural needs and to carry out the individual assessment imposed by Articles 20, 21, 34 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1348.

The regulatory framework is compact: Article 20 lays down the obligation to assess special procedural guarantees "also by reason of gender and past experiences of psychological, physical, sexual or gender-based violence"; Article 21 requires the decision-maker not to apply — or to bring to an end — the accelerated procedure where it does not allow adequate support to be ensured. Point (j) of Article 42 is not, in itself, incompatible with the individual assessment; but it demands that the latter be actually carried out, not replaced by the reference to the statistical datum.

The inadequacy of the interview and the effectiveness of protection

The judge records a specific fact: the interview took place "from 8.55 to 9.35" and, after a general request to specify what had happened during the twenty-year cohabitation, "no specific questions appear to have been put on the frequency and intensity of the conduct, on any physical assaults or threats, on the manner in which the partner exercised control, on attempts to leave, on the consequences of the conduct for the son and on the possibility that the partner might trace the appellant in the event of return". An interview conducted in this way does not fulfil the investigative function required by the Regulation.

As regards protection in the country of origin, the decree notes that the Commissione is said to have referred to "a Council of Europe project of January 2020 and a national plan for the period 2018-2020", without adequately engaging with the subsequent information on the persistent under-reporting of domestic violence, on the limited availability of reception facilities and on the cultural, territorial and administrative obstacles faced by victims. The method is that required by Article 67(3): a full and ex nunc examination, which is not exhausted by the formal existence of legislative provisions but concerns the concrete accessibility and effectiveness of protection.

The balancing of interests

In the last part the decree considers the stability of the applicant's life in Italy — presence since 2022, family care work in a documented household, promise of permanent employment for fifty-four hours a week — and concludes that immediate removal would expose her to consequences that are not fully reversible, both as regards renewed exposure to her former partner and as regards the possibility of obtaining an effective judicial examination. No countervailing national security or public order interests emerge. Authorisation to remain is granted until the appeal is decided.

The decree adds to the case law already collected on this site which, under the full rules of the Procedures Regulation, removes from the 20% threshold applicants who allege membership of categories not represented by the statistical datum (among others, Trib. Napoli 17573/2026 on Bangladesh): here the criterion is not membership of a pre-defined category, but the existence of an experience of gender-based violence that would have required the assessment of special procedural guarantees and possible removal from the accelerated procedure.