Introduction:
The case concerned U.S. citizens seeking recognition of Italian citizenship through an Italian-born ancestor who emigrated to the United States. The applicants submitted a complete genealogical reconstruction and civil-status documentation demonstrating the direct line of descent through successive generations. The descendants born in the United States had acquired U.S. citizenship automatically at birth under the principle of jus soli. The Ministry of the Interior did not appear in the proceedings, while the Public Prosecutor did not submit an opinion.
Outcome:
The Court granted the petition and declared the applicants Italian citizens jure sanguinis. It ordered the Ministry of the Interior and, through it, the competent Civil Status Registrar to carry out all registrations, transcriptions and annotations required by law, including the necessary communications to the competent Italian consular authorities. The costs of the proceedings were offset.
Challenge:
One of the most significant aspects of the judgment concerned the applicants’ interest in seeking judicial protection despite the existence of an administrative procedure. The Court observed that, as a matter of principle, a fully documented application for recognition of citizenship should be granted administratively without requiring judicial proceedings. In this case, however, the evidence showed that no appointments were available at the competent Italian Consulate in the United States, making it impossible even to determine when the application could receive its initial examination. Referring to the requirement under Italian administrative law that proceedings be concluded within defined and certain time limits, the Court held that prolonged uncertainty concerning the processing of a jure sanguinis application, combined with the passage of an unreasonable period of time, constitutes an infringement of the applicant’s interest that can be treated as equivalent to a denial of recognition. Judicial protection was therefore justified.
Action:
Turning to the substance of the claim, the Court found that the applicants had demonstrated an unbroken direct line of descent from the Italian-born ancestor through the civil-status documentation submitted with the petition. The Court recalled the principle contained in Article 1 of Law No. 91/1992 that a child of an Italian citizen father or mother is an Italian citizen by birth. It also noted that the descendants’ acquisition of U.S. citizenship at birth by jus soli did not prevent the transmission of Italian citizenship through the family line. Importantly, the Court expressly found that there had been no transmission through a maternal line before the entry into force of the Italian Constitution. Consequently, there was no historical gender-based obstacle requiring the application of the case law developed for pre-1948 maternal-line claims. The citizenship line could therefore be recognized under the rules applicable at the time of each descendant’s birth.
For the privacy of our clients, all names are fictional, and any identifying details in the judgements have been obscured.