The Government of Sicily, in southern Italy, will have to compensate a child with 1,000 euros because he could not go out to play to the streets during the confinement imposed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was decided this Friday by the Council of Administrative Justice for the Sicilian region.

The Council, which represents the highest administrative justice body operating in Sicily, has accepted the appeal presented by the parents of the minor and has granted compensation of 200 euros for each day without the possibility of playing up to a maximum of 1,000 euros, according to local media reports cited by the Efe agency.

Likewise, the organization has rejected the order issued in April 2020 by the then governor of Sicily, Nello Musumeci, which reinforced confinement measures imposed by the Government of Italy, then led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

The state decree prohibited any physical activity outdoors, even for “minors accompanied by their parents,” but it did allow them “go out, run, play and walk” always “close to your home”. However, Musumeci, current Minister of Civil Protection, was more severe and eliminated that exception in its regional standarda text that for the Justice Council did not comply with the principles of “adequacy and proportionality.”

According to the jurists who make up that body, at that time in Sicily there was “no catastrophe” nor an “epidemiological worsening” after the last decree issued by the central Executive that justified the tightening of the rules. Furthermore, the decision highlights that for children the issue was “very delicate in terms of psychological growth and formation“.