Introduction:
In this case, the Court of Bari examined an application filed by foreign descendants seeking recognition of Italian citizenship by descent from an Italian-born ancestor. The applicants reconstructed the entire genealogical line through official civil-status records, demonstrating uninterrupted transmission of citizenship across successive generations. The Ministry of the Interior appeared in the proceedings and expressly stated that it had identified no grounds preventing recognition of the applicants' citizenship claim. The case was therefore decided solely on the basis of the documentary evidence produced.
Outcome:
The Court granted the application and declared the applicants to be Italian citizens jure sanguinis from birth. It ordered the Ministry of the Interior, through the competent Civil Status Registrar, to complete all registrations, transcriptions, and annotations required by law and to notify the competent Italian consular authorities. Legal costs were fully offset between the parties.
Challenge:
The Court examined the claim under the legal framework in force before the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, which was applicable ratione temporis. It recalled the settled case law of the Constitutional Court and the Joint Sections of the Italian Supreme Court recognizing that descendants of Italian women affected by the discriminatory provisions of Law No. 555 of 1912 remain entitled to judicial recognition of citizenship. The judgment emphasizes that citizenship is a permanent and imprescriptible legal status, capable of being asserted at any time where the discriminatory effects of the former legislation continued beyond the entry into force of the Italian Constitution. It also recalls that the automatic loss of citizenship imposed on Italian women upon marriage to foreign citizens has been declared unconstitutional because it violated the constitutional principle of equality between spouses.
Action:
After reviewing the documentary evidence, the Court found that the applicants had fully established their line of descent and that the Italian ancestor had never lost Italian citizenship, thereby validly transmitting it to all subsequent generations. No evidence emerged of any express renunciation capable of interrupting the chain of citizenship transmission. Applying the consolidated principles developed by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, the Court held that the discriminatory effects of the former citizenship legislation ceased on 1 January 1948 and could no longer prevent descendants from obtaining judicial recognition of their citizenship rights. It therefore declared the applicants to have been Italian citizens since birth and ordered the competent authorities to complete the required civil-status registrations.
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