Introduction:
The applicants sought judicial recognition of Italian citizenship as direct descendants of an Italian ancestor who emigrated to the United States. Because part of the lineage involved maternal transmission prior to 1948, administrative recognition was unavailable, making judicial proceedings the only viable path. The Ministry of the Interior entered an appearance but did not contest the substance of the claim.
Outcome:
The Court upheld the claim in full and declared the applicants Italian citizens, ordering the Ministry of the Interior and the competent Civil Status Registrar to carry out all registrations, transcriptions, and annotations in the civil registers, as well as the necessary communications to consular authorities. Legal costs were fully set off due to the complexity and jurisprudential nature of the issues addressed.
Challenge:
The case involved multiple legal complexities: pre-1948 maternal transmission, historical naturalization of the ancestor after the relevant birth, and the interaction between long-standing constitutional jurisprudence and the recent citizenship reform of 2025. The Court clarified that the reform was inapplicable, as the application had been filed before its entry into force, and reaffirmed that discriminatory pre-constitutional rules cannot produce effects after 1 January 1948.
Action:
The legal team reconstructed the entire genealogical line through certified, translated, and apostilled civil status records, proving uninterrupted descent and the absence of any express renunciation of citizenship. Relying on Constitutional Court rulings (1975 and 1983) and the Supreme Court Joint Sections’ landmark decisions (2009 and 2022), counsel demonstrated that citizenship by descent is an essential, permanent, and imprescriptible personal status, enforceable at any time through judicial proceedings. The Court accepted the evidence and ordered full implementation.
For the privacy of our clients, all names are fictional, and any identifying details in the judgements have been obscured.