Introduction:
The applicants sought judicial recognition of Italian citizenship as direct descendants of an Italian citizen born in Sicily in the late 19th century. Because the lineage included maternal transmission prior to 1948, still excluded from administrative recognition, the applicants were required to pursue judicial protection. The Ministry of the Interior did not enter an appearance.
Outcome:
The Court upheld the application 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 status registers, as well as the required communications to consular authorities. Legal costs were fully offset between the parties.
Challenge:
The case addressed the enduring effects of pre-constitutional gender discrimination, under which Italian women lost citizenship upon marriage to foreign nationals and were barred from transmitting citizenship to their children. The Court conducted an extensive review of constitutional jurisprudence, clarifying that these discriminatory effects persisted beyond 1948 and continue to justify judicial recognition for descendants, regardless of the time elapsed or the death of intermediate ancestors.
Action:
The legal team reconstructed the entire genealogical line through certified, translated, and apostilled civil status records, demonstrating uninterrupted descent and the absence of any voluntary renunciation of Italian citizenship. Relying on Constitutional Court judgments (1975 and 1983) and the Supreme Court Joint Sections’ landmark decisions (2009 and 2022), counsel established that citizenship by descent is an essential, absolute, and imprescriptible personal status, capable of judicial recognition at any time. 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.