Introduction:
The case concerned several U.S. citizens seeking recognition of Italian citizenship through a female ancestor born in Italy who later emigrated to the United States. The applicants reconstructed their direct genealogical line through civil-status documentation and maintained that the Italian ancestor had not become a naturalized U.S. citizen. The Ministry of the Interior did not appear in the proceedings, while the Public Prosecutor issued an opinion in favor of granting the application. The Court also confirmed its territorial jurisdiction by reference to the Italian ancestor’s place of birth.
Outcome:
The Court granted the petition and declared the applicants to be Italian citizens. It ordered the Ministry of the Interior and, through it, the competent Civil Status Registrar to complete all registrations, transcriptions and annotations required by law, together with the necessary communications to the competent Italian consular authorities. The costs of the proceedings were fully offset.
Challenge:
The central legal issue was the transmission of citizenship through the maternal line before 1 January 1948. Under Law No. 555/1912, citizenship transmission through women was historically subject to restrictions that did not apply equally to men. The Court recalled Constitutional Court Judgment No. 30/1983, which declared unconstitutional the provision that failed to recognize as an Italian citizen by birth the child of an Italian mother. It then referred to the subsequent case law of the Joint Sections of the Supreme Court, which extended protection to descendants where the relevant maternal transmission occurred before the Constitution entered into force. The judgment also addressed the applicants’ U.S. citizenship. Referring to Article 7 of Law No. 555/1912, the Court confirmed that a child of an Italian citizen born in a country applying jus soli could retain the Italian citizenship acquired by descent. The automatic acquisition of U.S. nationality at birth therefore did not, by itself, interrupt the Italian citizenship line.
Action:
After examining the documentation, the Court found the applicants’ claim well-founded. The evidence established their direct descent from the Italian-born female ancestor and supported the assertion that she had not naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Applying the constitutional and Supreme Court principles governing maternal transmission, the Court concluded that the applicants, although already U.S. citizens jure soli from birth, were also Italian citizens jure sanguinis through the maternal line from birth. It therefore granted the petition and ordered the competent authorities to complete the resulting civil-status formalities.
For the privacy of our clients, all names are fictional, and any identifying details in the judgements have been obscured.