The European Parliament has decided to refer the recently-adopted Frontex guidelines to European Court of Justice in order to challenge their validity on procedural grounds.

The initiative was taken on the request of MEP Simon Busuttil.

The controversial rules caused uproar in Malta because migrants saved on the high seas during a Frontex mission would have had to be taken to the mission’s host country rather than the closer safe port.

This means that if Malta hosted a Frontex mission, as it has done in the past years, it would have had to receive all migrants saved on the Libya-Italy route. The rules, in fact, led to a declaration by Malta that it would not participate in Frontex missions under these conditions.

The rules have been vigorously challenged by Dr Busuttil in the EP since January. A motion to reject them narrowly fell short of the required absolute majority last April. However, the MEP has now succeeded in persuading the Parliament to challenge them in court.

The Parliament is arguing that the European Commission was wrong to present the rules in a manner that excluded Parliament from any possibility to amend them, leaving it with the limited choice of just accepting or rejecting them.

Instead, it argues that the rules had to follow the normal legislative procedure that gives Parliament the full possibility to have it say. As a result, the Parliament claims that the rules are invalid because the Commission had acted beyond its powers.

Dr Busuttil convinced all political groups in the Civil Liberties Committee and in the Legal Affairs Committee in the European Parliament to support the initiative of taking these guidelines to court on this basis.

The initiative was unanimously supported in both committees with the Legal Affairs Committee deciding unanimously on Wednesday.

"Yesterday we have given notice to the Commission that not all is fine with these rules and it is time for a rethink. We want to ensure that Parliament's role is defended. But we must also ensure that these rules are fair. In their current version they are not." Busuttil said welcoming the decision.

The European Court of Justice is expected to rule on the case in around eighteen months. If the request is upheld, the rules would still continue to apply until they are replaced.