Meloni's migrant scheme hits another hurdle.

The Italian government's contested migrant repatriation scheme in Albania faced a fresh challenge on Monday after a Rome court suspended the detention of seven migrants.

The immigration section of the Rome tribunal referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and ordered that the seven migrants, from Egypt and Bangladesh, be returned to Italy once the 48-hour deadline to validate their detention expired, news agency ANSA reports.

The order came just three days after an Italian naval ship carrying the migrants landed in Albania as Rome sought to revive its controversial scheme following several legal hurdles from Italian courts.

In a social media post on Monday evening, deputy Italian premier Matteo Salvini slammed the latest ruling as "another political sentence not against the government, but against Italians and their safety".

The offshore migrant centres in Albania, a flagship policy of Italy's right-wing premier Giorgia Meloni, have faced much criticism from human rights groups since their launch a month ago.

The first 12 migrants sent to the Italian-run facilities were returned to Italy after the same Rome court ruled that their countries of origin, Bangladesh and Egypt, were not safe enough for repatriation.

Meloni's government reacted angrily to the ruling and swiftly changed the law to classify 19 countries - including Bangladesh and Egypt - as "safe".

Judges in Bologna subsequently challenged the parameters of the decree, referring it to the CJEU and asking how entire countries could be declared safe where there is evidence of the persecution of minorities.

Last week a Sicilian court ruled that Egypt could not be considered a "safe" country and refused to grant a detention order for an Egyptian asylum seeker.

Photo credit: Alessio Tricani / Shutterstock.com.