Constitutional Court full decision Translated EN
Judgment n. 63/2026 - Hearing March 11, 2026 -
By Coco Ruggeri - April 30, 2026
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
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Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Judgment 63/2026 (ECLI:IT:COST:2026:63)
Proceeding: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY PROCEEDING (INCIDENTAL)
President: AMOROSO - Rapporteur: PITRUZZELLA
Public Hearing: March 11, 2026; Decision of March 11, 2026
Deposited on: April 30, 2026; Published in the Official Gazette
Challenged Norms: Article 3-bis of Law 05/02/1992, No. 91, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28/03/2025, No. 36, converted, with amendments, into Law 23/05/2025, No. 74.
Headnotes:
Acts Decided: Order 167/2025
JUDGMENT NO. 63
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Composed of: President: Giovanni AMOROSO; Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding of Article 3-bis of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74, promoted by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, in the case between M.E. E.A. and others and the Ministry of the Interior, with the order of 25 June 2025, registered under No. 167 of the 2025 order register and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.
Considering the acts of constitution by M.E. E.A., R.J. E.A., M.V. A.B., A.C. A.B., M.V. E.A., M.A. M.A., and M.A. M.A. for themselves and their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the intervention acts of L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Iure Sanguinis Association of Jurists (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. and others, the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. and others, and, filed late, A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the intervention act of the President of the Council of Ministers;
Heard in the public hearing of 11 March 2026, the Rapporteur Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella;
Heard the lawyers Marco Mellone for A. L.A. and J. L.A., Giovanni Bonato, Monica Lis Restanio, and Diego Corapi for M.E. E.A. and the other parties constituted, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as the state lawyer Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;
Decided in the council chamber on 11 March 2026.
Considered in Fact
- The Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge panel, raised constitutional legitimacy issues concerning Article 3-bis — limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set forth in letters a), a-bis), and b) — of Law 5 February 1992, No. 91 (New Citizenship Norms), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law 28 March 2025, No. 36 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law 23 May 2025, No. 74.
Article 3-bis states the following: "Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law 21 April 1983, No. 123, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law 13 June 1912, No. 555, and Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree 25 June 1865, No. 2358, a person born abroad even before the date of entry into force of this article and who holds another citizenship is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies: a) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the status of citizenship of the individual is recognized, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the status of citizenship of the individual is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the regulations applicable as of 27 March 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date; c) a first- or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship; d) a parent or adoptive parent has been a resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
The referring court notes that, under the legal regime in force before Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, the petition would have been well‑founded “despite the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor who married a foreign citizen and with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current Constitution of 1948.” The court also reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Ordinary Court of Rome had determined the status of Italian citizenship (order of 13 September 2023, No. 23849).
The referring judge considers the new regime established by Article 3‑bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 applicable to the present case because the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall within the “derogatory” cases listed in letters a) to d) of Article 3‑bis, paragraph 1, since they did not submit an administrative recognition request and filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, that is, one day after the deadline set by Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. Moreover, their ancestors neither possessed exclusively Italian citizenship nor resided in Italy for two years”
2.– The referring court believes that the aforementioned Article 3-bis implicitly and retroactively revokes the Italian citizenship that the appellants had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on September 16, 1963, and made effective by the decree of the President of the Republic of April 14, 1982, No. 217.
2.1.– With regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court complains about the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty. In the first instance, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial claim before March 28, 2025, and those who filed it afterwards, without any relevance of the diversity in the applicable legislation being linked to any further significant objective element."
In the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights," considering that reliance on legal certainty is the foundation of the "social contract" upon which the republican legal system is based. The court refers to Judgment No. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institution of forfeiture does not tolerate, "by its nature, retroactive applications, 'as it is logically impossible to conceive of a situation where the right is extinguished... due to failure to exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline by which the right... must be exercised' (Judgment No. 191 of 2005)." According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, considering in particular the "particularly high degree of consolidation" of case law on the issue of citizenship by descent, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases similar to the present one) have peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.
Furthermore, an additional argument supporting the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the criticized law ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal rights") can be derived from comparative legal experience. The referring court notes that in Germany, a federal reform that came into force on January 1, 2000, introduced, as an additional condition for acquiring German citizenship, the principle of the place of birth, in addition to the principle of descent. However, the German legislator made "the new (and more restrictive) citizenship law applicable only to those born after January 1, 2000, without providing for any retroactive application (and in a more disadvantageous manner)." This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which, "with immediate effect and retroactive effect," disapplies the law on the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth, which has been in force since 1912.
2.2.– According to the referring court, the criticized norm would also conflict with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations undertaken by Italy. With regard to the violation of the self-executing provisions of European Union law, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled on the so-called alternative remedies (referring to Judgment No. 7 of 2025).
In particular, the violation of Article 9 TUE and Article 20 TFEU is alleged. The first provision establishes that "[t]he Union respects, in all its activities, the principle of equality of citizens, who receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, and agencies. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it." The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[a] Union citizenship is established. A Union citizen is anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State. Union citizenship is added to national citizenship and does not replace it."
This issue would be admissible "because of the reflection that Italian citizenship has on the holding of European citizenship": therefore, the criticized norm would affect provisions of the treaties (those related to citizenship) that have direct effect in our legal system.
The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of September 5, 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation like the one at issue in the main proceedings, where the national legislation results in the person concerned losing ipso iure the citizenship of the Member State concerned and, consequently, losing Union citizenship when they reach the age of 22, that person must be given a reasonable time to submit a request to the competent authorities for an examination of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if necessary, the maintenance or retroactive reacquisition of that citizenship" (paragraph 50).
2.3.– The criticized Article would also violate Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality." The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of 'implicit revocation' introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, letters a) and b) of Decree-Law No. 36/2025, insofar as they make the 'revocation' retroactive... to 11:59 PM of the day preceding the entry into force of the same Decree-Law."
2.4.– Finally, Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 of the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national." The criticized norm would deprive its addressees of "the right to enter the Italian territory simply for not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025."
In conclusion, the referring court deems Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 constitutionally illegitimate, in the parts indicated above, as "it would have been possible to provide for an intertemporal regulation that would allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, who hold another nationality and lack a 'genuine link' with Italy) to be duly informed of the legislative changes, so that they could submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship by descent."
The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to individuals born after the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. According to the referring court, such a declaration could also be accompanied by an intervention of a manipulative nature by this Court, "providing for an intertemporal legal mechanism that ensures the possibility (for all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law No. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable time limits."
3. The parties to the case have appeared in this proceeding with a document filed on October 6, 2025.
First, they highlight the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues raised, and thus the admissibility of the questions presented. As for the reference in the order to the manipulative intervention of this Court, the parties argue that it would only mean "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed" by this Court, which would be "free to identify the most suitable ruling for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the criticized provision": however, the request in the order would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablatory."
3.1. On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on a "stable and coherent legislation" (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship by descent) and on a case law consistently inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantial ownership" of the citizenship status arises solely from birth, while the "formal ownership" of such status can be subsequently established in court or through administrative means, if it is not yet recorded in civil registers. The determination allows for the exercise of rights related to the status. According to the parties, since this status is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had a legal duty to claim, during their lifetime, the preservation of their Italian citizenship": thus, failure to initiate the verification procedure would not indicate "negligence" or "lack of interest." No automatic mechanism would be allowed for the extinction of the citizenship status: the loss of status could only result from a conscious and voluntary act by the interested party. Our constitutional system would not admit "cases of collective loss," meaning "a mass denationalization of certain individuals," which would apply ex lege under certain conditions.
The parties observe that the requirements for acquiring citizenship by descent would only be those set by the law in force at the time of birth. They refer to Article 20 of Law No. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the citizenship status acquired prior to this law does not change except for facts occurring after its entry into force."
According to the parties, there would be "a fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of the citizenship already possessed," and in cases of extinction or deprivation of status, "strict and determined limits, respecting the principles of reasonableness and proportionality," should be observed.
3.2. Regarding the individual issues, the parties consider the question raised under Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the criticized norm would provide for "a true retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship." The formula used by the legislator of "failure to acquire ex tunc" citizenship, therefore, would disguise an instance of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, leading to a violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The criticized norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity," which "depletes the legal sphere of the recipients," violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectation. The fact (birth abroad) that – although historically concurrent with a constitutive element – becomes legally significant only with a subsequent law, compared to the day when the status arose, should be qualified as extinguishing. The criticized norm would determine a loss of collective citizenship, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "with a surprise effect."
The constitutional legitimacy doubts raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria established by this Court for reviewing retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention," the predictability of retroactive modification, the intervening public interests, and the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws when it is concretely evident that these laws have produced results that do not meet criteria of fairness." The criticized intervention would be disproportionate, canceling the citizenship status to the detriment of the dual citizens born abroad, and unpredictable: thus, the norm under examination would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectation and legal certainty. It would involve an "illegitimate automatism," a worsened treatment that disregards the behavior of the recipients and would have a discriminatory character towards dual citizens born abroad.
The parties note that the legislations of other European Union Member States have never introduced "retroactive, worsening modifications limiting acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity of laws affecting citizenship." In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply, and the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The criticized norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal landscape."
3.3. The questions raised under Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the aforementioned judgment Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, invoked by the referring court. The criticized norm would be incompatible with European Union law "because it does not allow those affected by the consequences of the new regulation to maintain citizenship... by exercising a reasonable option within a suitable time frame, or – at the limit – to reacquire it upon simple request if the loss has irreversibly occurred."
The criticized norm would also violate the aforementioned Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "actual justifying criteria," but would be "linked solely to a point in time"; it would affect "an indiscriminate plurality of people" and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of being born outside the territory of the State." The arbitrariness would not even be "tempered by an adequate procedure in which the affected party could defend their subjective legal position."
Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3, paragraph 2, Protocol No. 4 ECHR. The parties cite the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Fourth Section, of June 21, 2016, Ramadan v. Malta, concerning a case of revocation of citizenship, and note that the presentation of an administrative or judicial request could not "be considered a circumstance from which to derive the greater or lesser 'worthiness' of the rights and interests of the individuals involved."
4. – The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Legal Office, intervened in the proceedings with a document filed on 7 October 2025.
First, the State Legal Office raises an objection to the admissibility of the issues due to a lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the petitioner’s statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants’ claim is said to be dogmatic and based on “deficient and contradictory” documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and to their death certificate.
4.1 – The State’s defense then reviews the regulatory and case-law framework preceding Decree‑Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, which was characterized by an expansive approach to citizenship, and emphasizes the “exponential increase in requests for recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis by foreign citizens.” It reports that Italians residing abroad and born abroad increased by 51 percent from 2013 to 2024, rising from just under three million to just under four and a half million. In particular, about 90 percent of Italians residing in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela were born abroad. The State Legal Office observes that for descendants of Italians who possess, by ius soli, the citizenship of their country of birth, holding Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, emigration to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for verification of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis submitted to consular offices, especially in South America, has created long waiting lists, so that many have turned to the ordinary courts, with a considerable increase in litigation in citizenship matters: the pending proceedings are said to have risen from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that a single petition may be brought jointly by multiple persons.
The exponential growth in verifications of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both through administrative channels and through the judiciary, is said to have effects on the composition of the electorate, increasingly influencing the Italian political decision‑making process (for example, making it more difficult to reach the quorum in the event of a repeal referendum). The State Legal Office notes that citizenship is also granted to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can apply, after three years of marriage, for facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to any minor children who have no blood ties to Italy.
The State’s defense then undertakes a comparative analysis, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations on the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.
The approval of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would thus have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of state bodies and functions, as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulations in force in other European Union countries." In light of the urgent need for intervention, the legislator would have chosen to "reinstate the traditional opposition to multiple citizenship regimes," also avoiding that the absence of actual ties to the Republic among an increasing number of citizens could create "risk factors for national security" and the security of other EU member states. However, the criticized legislation would also protect legitimate reliance, safeguarding recognitions already made and applications already submitted. According to the State Legal Office, Article 3-bis would not result in any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmitting Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.
4.2 – Turning to the issue raised in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State Legal Office observes that the legislator has broad discretion in matters concerning the acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the sole provision in the Constitution dedicated to the topic (Article 22). It then considers the criteria established by this Court for the review of retroactive laws. As for the consolidation of the affected legal situation, the State Legal Office observes that the citizenship verification procedure would be "formally declaratory but, in fact, constitutive," following a complex investigation with the burden of proof placed on the applicant. Therefore, it could not be said that a legal situation has been consolidated, but rather that it is "a mere legal expectation." The verification process would be similar to naturalization. Prior to its positive outcome, no rights could be exercised, and no duty could be required for fulfillment.
As for the predictability of the amendment, according to the State Legal Office, the criticized provision would not have retroactive effect, as it does not affect "fully consolidated" legal situations or the concrete exercise of rights. Even if it were assumed to be retroactive, it would not violate legitimate reliance, as it is difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential eligible individuals worldwide who have had decades [...] to express their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but have deliberately chosen to disregard it." On the contrary, given the comparative legal landscape, "there was a well-founded expectation that the Italian State would also intervene with corrective measures, which have been notoriously under consideration by the legislator for many years."
Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Legal Office refers to the premises of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, and observes that, since the descendants of emigrant Italian citizens are estimated to number around 60 million, if the legislative intervention had only concerned future-born individuals, the objectives outlined in those premises could not have been adequately achieved. Even more severe consequences would have arisen had a deadline been set for the submission of applications for the entire potential group: the competent administrations would have been overwhelmed by an unimaginable number of requests, specifically resulting from the existence of such a final deadline. The State Legal Office notes that the criticized provision has introduced appropriate safeguards, protecting situations of statelessness, applications already submitted, and minors (Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "for whom responsibility cannot be attributed for not having acted earlier." The criticized legislation would therefore be proportionate.
Finally, as for the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the principle of fairness inherent in the previous situation, the State Legal Office observes that the criticized provision aims to prevent "the very concept of 'people', holders of sovereignty, from becoming an indeterminable entity, detached from any bond with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty," resulting in unequal treatment between millions of people born and raised abroad, and citizens of other states to whom they owe loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work within the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, resulting in identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations." The State Legal Office cites the ruling of the Court of Cassation, civil united sections, 24 August 2022, No. 25317, according to which "the bond of citizenship can never be based on a fiction." Over time, the social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration weaken, and correspondingly, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly stronger, until they become virtually exclusive for subsequent generations.
4.3 – The State Legal Office also considers the issues raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be unfounded. The competences of states in matters of citizenship should be exercised in accordance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The mentioned ruling of the Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet would have reaffirmed the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the bond of solidarity and loyalty between a member state and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties that form the foundation of citizenship." The decisions of the Court of Justice regarding the obligations states must respect when revoking citizenship would concern different cases, as they involve situations where the individuals were identified as citizens of the member state, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations associated with citizenship, and then were subject to individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. In contrast, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their entire life, have behaved as foreigners."
However, according to the State Legal Office, it is necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquiring citizenship, not on the loss of citizenship. The judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, of 29 April 2025, Case C-181/23, European Commission, would indicate not only that the criticized provision is in line with European law but also that it would have "introduced the necessary corrections to a legal system that, otherwise, could have been in conflict with EU law itself." The previous legal framework, in fact, allowed individuals without any genuine connection to the European Union to enjoy the rights provided by the European legal system, "potentially allowing millions of people to enter the EU area, without any form of control, with repercussions also on public security, not only national," and on the provision of social benefits. For example, two-thirds of Italians living in Spain were born outside of Italy.
Nevertheless, the criticized provision would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: since an individual examination of each case is excluded (which would paralyze the activities of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would affect those who reside abroad, hold another nationality, and, "having chosen not to request recognition of citizenship throughout their life, would not actually experience any change in their subjective situation." At most, it would be a loss of the possibility of future recognition: a possibility not excluded in the form of naturalization, which Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, would have facilitated for Italian descendants.
As for the issue raised regarding international law, the State Legal Office observes that "[n]o international norm, whether treaty-based or customary, is found that protects the absolute right of individuals to hold dual or multiple nationalities." The State Legal Office then refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which there is no autonomous right to citizenship in the ECHR or its Protocols, and Article 8 of the ECHR can only be violated if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on an individual's private life. The criticized provision would comply with the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality found in international law" and with the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies uniformly to a wide group of individuals, not distinguished based on differences of race, religion, gender, or other factors, but simply based on a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislator in the sole citizenship of the parent or grandparent."
5. – On 6 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by the following: Iure Sanguinis Jurists Association (AGIS); Confederation of Italians Abroad; L.A. T. and others; L.A. F.
The first claims to bring together professionals working in the field of the recognition and acquisition of Italian citizenship: this would result in a qualified interest in intervention. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a connection between the third party's position and the subject of the case at hand, but believes that this criterion should be "recalibrated." If elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a subject like AGIS could provide such elements even more so.
The Confederation of Italians Abroad states that it is an association that works for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it claims to have challenged the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, No. 26185 (Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025, containing "Urgent Provisions on Citizenship"), which relates to Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted. This would result in a qualified interest in intervention.
L.A. T. and the other five intervening parties claim to have initiated judicial actions after 27 March 2025 for the recognition of Italian citizenship. Therefore, they would be holders of the same "substantive relationship" that is the subject of the case at hand. This would grant them standing to intervene.
L.A. F. claims that the criticized provision deprives him ex tunc of his status as an Italian citizen: thus, he would have a qualified interest in intervening in the present case. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives certain individuals of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding the representation in the proceedings." The necessity to access "novel" procedural tools for the protection of status would also result from Article 391-quater of the Civil Procedure Code, which provides for the possibility of appealing for revocation against "final decisions whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights to be contrary to" the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation established by the European Court has harmed a person's status right" (paragraph 1, number 1).
On 7 October 2025, intervention documents were filed by: the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies; R. D.C.R.R. and others; L.P. C.G.
The first states that it brings together descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and claims to have a qualified interest in intervening. The connection with the subject of the case at hand would result from the amici curiae provision: if elements useful to the constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, it is argued that a third party with particular qualifications, such as the association in question, could provide even more useful contributions.
R. D.C.R.R. and others claim to be parties in proceedings (initiated after 27 March 2025) similar to the one from which the issues under examination originate. Therefore, they would hold a "specific and qualified interest" in their acceptance.
L.P. C.G. claims to be a party in a case similar to the one from which the issues under examination arise; however, this case was initiated after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be entitled to intervene because the outcome of the present case could irreparably harm their legal position.
5.1. – On 7 October 2025, the foundation Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, which were admitted by presidential decree on 16 January 2026.
The first argues the constitutional illegitimacy of the criticized provisions, referring to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have provided for the revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing this point.
5.2. – On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive supplementary memorandum, in which they respond to the objection of inadmissibility and the arguments of the State Legal Office, focusing in particular on the administrative practice in citizenship verification procedures, the comparative legal framework, and the violation of acquired rights.
In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU, the parties propose a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, should the Court have doubts regarding the interpretation of those intervening norms.
On the same date, the State Legal Office also filed a supplementary memorandum, reiterating the inadmissibility and unfoundedness of the issues raised.
On the same date, the intervening party AGIS also filed a supplementary memorandum.
5.3. – With a document filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.
The intervenors state that they are petitioners in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso, which has suspended the case in order to raise constitutional legitimacy issues—by an order registered as No. 40 in the 2026 order register—concerning the same provisions challenged by the Court of Turin.
The intervention would be admissible since the decision that this Court will adopt regarding the issues at hand would influence the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it.
Considerations in Law
6. – The Court of Turin, specialized section in matters of immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in a single-judge composition, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "also before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions set out in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis provides as follows:
"Notwithstanding Articles 1, 2, 3, 14, and 20 of this law, Article 5 of Law No. 123 of 21 April 1983, Articles 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, and 19 of Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912, as well as Articles 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of the Civil Code approved by Royal Decree No. 2358 of 25 June 1865, a person is considered not to have ever acquired Italian citizenship if they were born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and hold another nationality, unless one of the following conditions applies:
a) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
a-bis) the person's citizenship status is recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the person by the competent office by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025;
b) the person's citizenship status is judicially recognized, in compliance with the regulations in force on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted by 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;
c) a first or second-degree ancestor possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship;
d) a parent or adopter has been resident in Italy for at least two consecutive years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the date of birth or adoption of the child."
According to the referring court, the criticized provision would violate:
a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in relation to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and legal certainty, as it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the verification of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; furthermore, it would violate acquired rights, because Article 3-bis would imply an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and no provision for transitional rights";
b) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 TFEU and Article 20 TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone holding the citizenship of a Member State;
c) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, nor of the right to change his nationality";
d) Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 ECHR, which states that "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national."
7. – As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared inadmissible by the trial order, which is attached to this judgment.
The other interventions in this case are also inadmissible.
With Judgment No. 142 of 2025 and Order No. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four cases concerning provisions for the transmission of citizenship by descent, without limits, declared the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists working in the citizenship field inadmissible, as they had "only an indirect interest, generally related to the statutory goals of protecting their members" (Judgment No. 142 of 2025), which was different from the interest required by Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, which states that in incidental constitutional review proceedings, "[p]arties with a qualified interest, directly and immediately related to the issue before the court" may intervene, with the "issue before the court" being the subject of the case at hand (see, for example, Judgment No. 199 of 2025; Order No. 60 of 2025). This is all the more true considering the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects with collective or diffuse interests related to the constitutional legitimacy issue to submit a written opinion to this Court as amici curiae (Judgment No. 142 of 2025).
In light of these precedents, which are analogous to the present case, the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Mutual Aid Societies must be declared inadmissible.
Indeed, the case before the Court of Turin concerns the request of eight Venezuelan citizens for the recognition of their Italian citizenship by descent, and none of the intervening parties holds an interest that is "directly and immediately" connected to this case.
Regarding the intervention of individual parties, who are involved in similar proceedings to the case at hand or are otherwise affected by the criticized provision, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient to make the intervention admissible merely because the party holds interests similar to those raised in the main case, or is a party in a similar, but different, case where the decision of this Court may affect it, as the access of such a third party to the incidental constitutional review proceeding would occur without the prior verification by the court of the relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness of the issues" (Order No. 85 of 2025). Therefore, the interventions of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G. must be declared inadmissible.
7.1. – Also concerning procedural matters, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Legal Office for insufficient reasoning on relevance must be examined. In particular, the referring court's statement regarding the existence of the prerequisites for granting the applicants' claim is said to be dogmatic and based on "deficient and contradictory" documentation, with reference to the failure to naturalize the Italian ancestor and their death certificate (which occurred in 1901).
The objection is unfounded.
The referring court provides extensive reasoning on the existence of the requirements for granting the claim (which was prevented by the criticized provision), citing the documents produced in the court of origin concerning the Italian citizenship at birth of the emigrated ancestor, the fact that the ancestor did not naturalize in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the following point 8.1.), and the births and marriages of the descendants, including the applicants in the court of origin. The referring court specifies that Italian citizenship was transmitted despite the presence in the genealogical line of a woman who had a child before 1948: this is in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation (unified civil sections, judgment of 25 February 2009, No. 4466; see the following point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the Italian emigrant ancestor, his daughter, and his grandson obtained recognition of Italian citizenship with the order of the Court of Rome No. 23849 of 2023.
Therefore, the reasoning on relevance is more than sufficient.
8. – Before examining the individual issues of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, divided into three parts:
- the first aims to provide a historical framework of the discipline on the transmission of Italian citizenship and to highlight the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.);
- the second to examine the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence of the legislative discipline on citizenship from it (point 8.2.);
- the third to illustrate the meaning of the criticized provisions and their rationale (point 8.3.).
The status of citizenship based on the bond of filiation is "permanent and imprescriptible [and] can be challenged at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive condition integrated by birth to an Italian citizen" (Cass., United Civil Sections, rulings No. 25317 of 2022, and 24 August 2022, No. 25318).
The criterion followed by Law No. 91 of 1992 has its roots in the Civil Code of 1865, which embraced the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in a direct agnatic line, in a historical context where, as is known, suffrage was highly restricted. As stated in the Compendium of Italian Electoral Statistics, compiled in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865, the political active electorate was limited to 2.08% of the population. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law No. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Electoral Law), it increased to 7.39% of the population, reserved for male literates aged at least 21, who met specific educational or property requirements (the latter, not achievable by Italians abroad, as they involved the payment of direct taxes).
Article 11, first paragraph, of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an unfavorable orientation towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost […] 2. By anyone who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country"), but this provision was interpreted restrictively, as the term "obtained" referred only to cases of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Cassation of Naples, ruling 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted if the descendants of the Italian emigrant acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli.
The criterion for the transmission of citizenship through filiation was confirmed by Law No. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian Citizenship), which also addressed the issue of the loss of Italian citizenship connected to the original (and thus involuntary) acquisition of foreign citizenship by ius soli in the country of emigration, based on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the legislator of 1912 was for an opting-out model, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Except for special provisions to be established through international treaties, an Italian citizen born and residing in a foreign state, from which he is considered a citizen by birth, retains Italian citizenship, but upon reaching adulthood or emancipation, he may renounce it"); the opposite opting-in solution, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, according to which an Italian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship by ius soli would lose, upon reaching adulthood, the Italian citizenship acquired by ius sanguinis, unless there was an express declaration to retain it, was ultimately defeated.
In the fifty years between 1876 and 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various destinations worldwide, with the majority (around 8.9 million people) heading to the American continent, to countries where ius soli was in force (see the report filed by the National Institute of Statistics - ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Committee in the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, regarding the draft bill for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025). This created a huge population of foreign citizens who also retained Italian citizenship, almost always unverified.
Over the years, the scale of the dual citizenship phenomenon has doubled, also due to legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with rulings No. 87 of 1975 and No. 30 of 1983, declared unconstitutional the provisions that resulted in the loss of citizenship for an Italian woman who acquired her husband's foreign citizenship by marriage (Article 10, third paragraph, of Law No. 555 of 1912), and those that did not grant citizenship by birth to the child of an Italian mother (Article 1, No. 1, of Law No. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the provisions declared unconstitutional were also inapplicable to cases prior to the entry into force of the Republican Constitution (see the aforementioned ruling No. 4466 of 2009).
The Italian situation has, over time, assumed entirely peculiar characteristics. The massive migration phenomenon, combined with the absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship through filiation, created a multitude of foreign citizens with "virtual" Italian citizenship, as it was unverified, and could be activated without time limits by the holders (the technical report on the draft law for the conversion of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025 estimates that there are over 60 million Italian descendants). The Italian legal framework represented an isolated case in comparative terms because other countries have gradually introduced limitations on the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (1993 text); in Germany, § 4, paragraph 4, of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981; and in Spain, Article 24 of the Civil Code.
This situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of the male active electorate, which took place with Law No. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the Reform of the Political Electoral Law), but also after the events between 1945 and 1948, which radically changed the scenario: the introduction of women's suffrage (provisional legislative decree of 1 February 1945, No. 23, "Extension of voting rights to women") and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen shortly, the maintenance of the original rules, born in a very different context, led to a gradual disharmony between the citizenship legislation and the constitutional framework.
8.2.– The transformation of the form of the state determined by the Constitution resulted in a fundamental change in the status of citizenship. Indeed, universal suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status of citizenship and the status of active citizenship, which, in the "monoclass state" based on limited suffrage for reasons of income and education, were separated.
The Constitution has brought about a "Copernican revolution" in the relationship between citizens and the state apparatus, as it entrusted the former, united in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum (as a title) but also quoad exercitium (as an exercise).
The provision stating that sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, second paragraph, of the Constitution), is embodied in the provisions that grant citizens democratic participation rights, particularly active and passive suffrage (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), participation in determining national policy through political parties (Article 49 of the Constitution), and the right to vote in referendums (Articles 75 and 138 of the Constitution).
Therefore, binding political decisions for the state community are made with the participation of the very citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, congruence is established between being subjected in a lasting way to a particular political domain, as components of the people of the state, and holding rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, understood in this way, allows for the reconciliation of the permanence of political domination – which entails the distinction between rulers and the ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.
It follows that citizens are substantially connected to the life of the democratic state, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. Through their democratic cooperation in decisions that affect the community, they are co-responsible for what happens to it and, at least to some extent, suffer the consequences, both those that are advantageous and those that involve burdens and sacrifices.
8.2.1.– Democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective bond between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this bond clearly emerges from certain constitutional principles.
In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a connection between the territory (the concept of "Italy" includes the geographical area), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens who are disconnected from that territory.
Article 4, second paragraph, states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to carry out, according to their own abilities and choice, an activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society." Therefore, active involvement in the national community is an intrinsic element of the constitutional vision of citizenship, which involves the existence of an actual set of relationships, social bonds, shared experiences, and responsibilities, which form the basis of the community of political destinies.
The constitutional connection between citizenship and active engagement in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which, on the one hand, assigns to the Republic the task of removing economic and social obstacles that effectively limit the freedom and equality of citizens, and on the other hand, links this task of the Republic to the goal of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective. Also, Article 2 requires the "fulfillment of the inalienable duties of political, economic, and social solidarity." It is also worth noting that, according to the fundamental provision of Article 1, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on labor."
Finally, Article 54, first paragraph, of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws." In fact, while foreigners present in the territory of the State are also obliged to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of loyalty" is specific to citizens and expresses the intensity of the bond that unites them to the national community.
Ultimately, the fabric of constitutional principles converges in the configuration of the people as a community bound by effective ties among its members, consisting of solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, and the sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, emphasizing the connection of the duty to pay taxes to the pactum unionis rather than to the pactum subiectionis, observed that, from a constitutional standpoint, “what lies at the center is no longer so much the State and the taxing power […] but rather other conceptual categories relating to the individual within the community, to the relationships arising from the social bonds in which they are embedded, and to the ties of solidarity that follow, which it is for the legislature to define, inspired by progressivity and in compliance with the ability to pay” (judgment No. 137 of 2025, para. 6).
8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism provided by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are structured into a multiplicity of political, economic, social, religious, and cultural formations. However, alongside the “people as multiplicity” stands the “people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its many dimensions, does not exclude the possibility that the people may express themselves as a unity—particularly in their capacity as an electorate—and that the Constitution configures them, in its first article, as a unitary subject. The famous “We the People” that opens the United States Constitution corresponds to the concise statement that “sovereignty belongs to the people.” Similarly to the expression used in the U.S. Constitution, it grounds the democratic order on a “plural singular,” on a “collective self,” which necessarily presupposes a connection to a territory—since sovereignty is exercised within a defined territorial space—and the sharing of certain substantive principles that create a sense of common belonging and collective identity.
In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "the constitutional provisions evoke a correlation between citizenship and the territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural soil and the sharing of constitutional principles" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, mutual rights, and duties, they tend to share the constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences themselves not as a member of a random assembly of individuals, but as a specific demos in which high pluralism and political conflict are compatible with the maintenance of national unity and social cohesion.
Moreover, the aforementioned constitutional configuration of the people justifies the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the majority's power to adopt political decisions affecting the entire community, without the minority feeling dominated by an "other" in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and minorities perceive themselves as part of the same community, bound by ties that transcend the individual decision or the political direction of a specific government.
8.2.3.– The Constitution expressly dedicates only one provision to the regime of citizenship, namely Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived of their citizenship for political reasons. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislator – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in regulating the institution (judgments No. 25 and No. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that the rules on citizenship are not exempt from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, and that the Constitution nonetheless outlines "aspects of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text" (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.2.).
In the absence of specific constitutional rules to apply to the regime of citizenship, it is necessary to consider the entirety of the principles examined, from which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with a few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, even within a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.
Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be highlighted:
a) Citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that affect them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subject to both the benefits and the sacrifices and burdens that arise from the set of those decisions;
b) Citizenship implies an effective bond with the people and the State, which involves a commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of duties of solidarity;
c) The effective bond of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural soil" and constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see the aforementioned para. 11.2 of judgment No. 142 of 2025).
8.2.4.– Now, a legislation like the one preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even people with no effective bond to the republican community to obtain Italian citizenship without limitation and, therefore, to contribute (in the case of verification) to the determination of decisions affecting that community, was, in fact, significantly distancing itself from the model of citizenship outlined above. Indeed, it allowed those who had not contributed to the community's progress, did not participate in its common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations arising from such decisions to take part in political decisions concerning the community.
Furthermore, the fact that individuals who are essentially strangers to the national community could, through the acquisition of citizenship, be decisive in forming the political majority (or in the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not contributed to the formation of that majority but shared an effective bond among themselves, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as being imposed from the “outside.”
The problematic aspects just mentioned have been accentuated by the reforms that introduced voting rights for Italians abroad: constitutional laws of 17 January 2000, No. 1 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution regarding the establishment of the Foreign constituency for the exercise of the voting rights of Italian citizens residing abroad) and 23 January 2001, No. 1 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution regarding the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented by Law No. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of voting rights by Italian citizens residing abroad).
8.2.5.– The regulation of citizenship must also comply with the principles concerning European Union citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3. of the Legal Considerations). The fact that a matter—such as citizenship—falls within the competence of the member states does not prevent national laws, in situations falling within the scope of Union law, from having to comply with the latter (ECJ, Fourth Chamber, judgment of 25 April 2024, joined cases C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, para. 34). This obligation finds its coverage, from the perspective of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph.
The ownership of citizenship in a member state constitutes the prerequisite for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of certain rights, including full freedom of movement and the right to vote and stand for election in the European Parliament elections and municipal elections in the member state of residence, on the same terms as citizens of that state (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights based on the aforementioned freedom of movement, as established by the Luxembourg judges.
From the above, two consequences follow:
a) the regulation of the conditions for acquiring national citizenship must take into account the effect of granting European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional significance of the latter;
b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the ownership of European citizenship and, therefore, on the enjoyment of the rights derived from it, with the consequence that it must comply with certain EU principles, such as the principle of proportionality.
All of this will be revisited when examining the specific complaint related to the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution. For the moment, however, two aspects of the most recent case law of the Court of Justice must be highlighted:
a) Member States, in granting citizenship, must take into account that "the foundation of the citizenship bond of a Member State lies in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between that State and its citizens, as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties," because this relationship "also forms the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve for Union citizens";
b) European citizenship is based "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that the Member States place in each other regarding the fact that none of them exercises this competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of Union citizenship" (Court of Justice, Commission judgment, paragraphs 96-97 and 95).
Therefore, there must be a relationship of coherence between the constitutional framework of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic system, as made in the previous sections, harmonizes and perfectly integrates with the requirements of European citizenship (judgment No. 142 of 2025, para. 11.3.). Indeed, in line with what the Luxembourg judges have stated, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and its citizens, and the reciprocity of rights and duties, is required. Furthermore, the aforementioned reconstruction ensures the connection between national citizenship and European citizenship, based on the sharing of certain civic values, which form the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. The constitutional principles, which contribute to creating an effective bond between the citizen and the national community, are largely overlapping and always consistent with the values enumerated in Article 2 TEU, which are the basis of the "European society." It is precisely this homogeneity of values that allows the individual to feel simultaneously Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society."
8.3.– It is now time to outline the content of the contested provisions.
Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, derogates ex tunc from the rules (described in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. Essentially, it establishes that "a person who was born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, and holds another citizenship, is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship," unless one of the following conditions is met (alternatively):
a) the status of citizenship is recognized (administratively or judicially) following a request submitted by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, or later, on the day indicated in an appointment communicated to the interested party by the competent office by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025;
b) one parent or grandparent holds, or held at the time of their death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by Ministry of the Interior Circular No. 26185 of 2025);
c) one parent or adoptive parent was a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the birth or adoption of the child.
The meaning of this provision is interpreted differently by the State Attorney General and the lower court (with which the constituted parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects and would apply only to future recognitions of citizenship. In the view of the latter, Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992 would imply an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its recipients.
Neither of these perspectives is shareable.
The regulation in question represents a textbook case of proper retroactivity (retroattività propria), as the legal effects of prior norms are excluded ex tunc, meaning that Article 3-bis assigns to past events "legal consequences different from their own within the reference time frame" (judgment No. 173 of 2019).
On the other hand, the new provision is clear in establishing an original exclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, rather than a revocation. From a "topographical" perspective, Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, places the new regulation (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992) immediately after the rules related to the acquisition of citizenship by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), and not within the provisions concerning revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).
The lack of use of the revocation institute is consistent with the content of the rules under examination, which produce effects for which revocation is conceptually irrelevant. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990, regarding "New rules on administrative procedure and the right of access to administrative documents") and in the citizenship law (Article 10-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with subsequent circumstances, while Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to address a situation that is quite distant in time (although worsened over the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as well as the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law No. 91 of 1992 and the ex officio annulment of the citizenship grant) affects a status already officially acquired by an individual, while the rules in question affect a status not officially recognized for a multitude of people. This is likely the reason for the particular phrase used by the legislator ("is considered to have never acquired Italian citizenship"): the use of the presumptive formula is appropriate because, for none of the individuals targeted by the rules, the status of Italian citizenship was legally certain.
It is also important to note that the decree in question modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent. Article 1, paragraph 1-bis, modifies Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship for "benefit of law." Additionally, Article 1-bis of the same decree-law establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants without generational limits, and their naturalization (the necessary residence period is reduced from three to two years). These new developments will be discussed in point 9.2.3.
9.– The individual constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Turin can now be examined.
As seen (point 6), the first issue, which claims the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, consists of two distinct sub-issues. First, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested citizenship recognition before March 28, 2025, and those who requested it after. Second, Article 3-bis would violate acquired rights by determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision for intertemporal law."
9.1.– The first issue is unfounded.
In general, it is not unusual to adopt transitional provisions that, in the event of a change in legislation, maintain the application of prior norms to proceedings already initiated. This Court has ruled that such provisions are not unreasonable, emphasizing the wide discretion of the legislator in limiting retroactivity through transitional provisions (judgments No. 376 of 2008 and No. 246 of 1992).
In the case at hand, the contested regulation chose to protect foreign nationals of Italian descent who had already submitted a request for the recognition of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), thereby placing a certain reliance on the application of the previous norms. The request for recognition is a circumstance that can reasonably be deemed sufficient to differentiate those who made it, as it increases the weight of their reliance. The issue regarding the distinction between those who received the appointment and those who initiated the citizenship recognition procedure but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on March 27, 2025, remains open, as it is outside the scope of the case before the court and therefore not raised by the referring judge.
9.2.– The issue regarding the violation of acquired rights is also unfounded.
The principle of legitimate reliance is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (see, among others, judgments No. 216 of 2023 and No. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing inherent to all constitutional principles and rights" (judgments No. 134 of 2025 and No. 182 of 2022, and similarly, No. 108 of 2019). To assess whether Article 3-bis has reasonably balanced the legitimate reliance of foreign nationals of Italian descent with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight" of the interest pursued by the contested norms (point 9.2.1.) and the extent of the reliance affected (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted (point 9.2.3.).
9.2.1.– For the first step in the review of the reasonableness of the balance struck by the legislator, it is useful to begin with the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically presents the reasons for its adoption.
The leitmotif is the principle of effectiveness, meaning the necessity for citizenship to be reserved for those with "effective ties" to the Republic (this phrase appears four times in the preamble). The preamble starts by recalling the previous regime, under which citizenship recognition could be requested without time limits, regardless of the "effective ties" to the Republic, and emphasizes that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens" with no ties to Italy constitutes a "serious and current risk factor for national security" and the security of other EU member states.
The preamble then asserts the need to introduce "limitations on the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship" to people born abroad, "conditioning it on clear indicators of the existence of effective ties with the Republic." Based on a joint consideration of the principles of Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, it is stated that no distinction should be made based on the moment of birth, meaning that a distinction based on that element is excluded as unreasonable.
Finally, the preamble declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality," the appropriateness of maintaining Italian citizenship for those who have already had it recognized and applying the previous norms to the recognition proceedings already initiated.
In essence, the purpose pursued by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, is to establish the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic," in order to restore the connection between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the preamble and point V of the explanatory report on the draft conversion law). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified by the consideration that a distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree in question) would be unreasonable, as that moment is a "random factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic."
Having clarified the interest pursued by the legislator, it should be noted that it aligns with the constitutional framework that outlines the traits of citizenship, as seen in point 8.2.
The "weight" of the genuine link criterion, in addition to emerging in the case law of the Court of Cassation (First Civil Section, judgment of 8 February 2024, No. 3564, para. 4; also see the aforementioned judgment of the United Civil Sections, No. 25317 of 2022, para. XI), is further confirmed by looking beyond our borders.
This criterion is first recognized in Article 7, paragraph 1, letter e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (drafted within the framework of the Council of Europe), which states that deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in the case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad."
The genuine link criterion is also emphasized in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions regarding both the granting of citizenship (see the aforementioned Commission judgment) and its loss (for example, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, para. 35); this topic will be revisited in point 10.
Finally, the importance of the principle of the effectiveness of citizenship is also evident in the case law of other constitutional courts. In Decision No. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil Constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité concerning Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship due to disuse. The Conseil noted that the legislator pursued a general interest objective by ending the automatic transmission of French citizenship by ius sanguinis when it no longer had any effectiveness. Similarly, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (judgment of 15 December 2025, No. 1133, which cites its own judgment No. 599 of 2005), the regulation of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of genuine ties between the individual and the Portuguese state and national community" (para. 12). In the judgment of the same Court, on the same date, No. 1134 of 2025, it is reaffirmed that "deprivation of citizenship will be arbitrary if disconnected from reasons that indicate the breakdown of the genuine link between the individual and the state" (para. 14.1). Finally, we can also cite the German Federal Constitutional Court, which stated that "the state cannot link citizenship to irrelevant factual circumstances that are not sufficiently connected to it" [judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations by this Court).
Moreover, since the referring court is not contesting the new norms themselves but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to also assess the weight of the legislator's need to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.
As seen in point 8.1., the legislator of 1912 adopted a framework that was inadequate to achieve the goal of balancing the need to maintain a bond with emigrants (and their descendants) with the need to preserve an effective link between them and Italy. The complete absence of limits on the transmission of citizenship by filiation, coupled with the magnitude of the migration phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners who were "potential Italian citizens" (as stated in the preamble to Decree-Law 36 of 2025), the extent of which was (and still is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was created from a legal-constitutional perspective, with the virtual entitlement to political rights for millions of people completely disconnected from Italy, and later also from an economic-social perspective, when the "poles of attraction" were reversed and Italy became a country of immigration. Since Law No. 91 of 1992 did not change the legal framework, the subsequent concrete manifestation of these issues was the enormous influx of applications at consulates and appeals to Italian courts for the recognition of citizenship. If in December 2013, Italian citizens residing abroad numbered 4,482,115, of whom 2,974,488 were born abroad, by December 2024, they had risen to 6,412,752, of whom 4,496,297 were born abroad (see the table in the explanatory report on the draft conversion law, point IV).
Limiting the effects of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, to future births would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other words, if the interest in maintaining an effective link between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the significant weight outlined above, a similar weight must be recognized for the need to apply the new conditions for acquiring citizenship retroactively. The goal pursued by the decree in question would have been largely undermined if the contested provisions had not been directed to the past, in order to remedy the effects of the previous norms.
9.2.2.– The second step of the reasonableness test for the retroactive law requires assessing the extent of the reliance of those who have been affected by the legal change caused by Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
Article 3-bis, by excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a large group of people, has certainly impacted their reliance on being able, one day, to request the recognition of their citizenship status, in order to exercise related rights (such as the right to reside permanently in Italy and to vote).
The weight of this reliance, however, is weakened by the following circumstances.
The essential element to emphasize is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, meaning the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor does it affect the position of those who have submitted an application or received an appointment. In line with what was stated in the preamble, the reliance of these individuals, even though they have no real ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislator to be more significant than the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.
Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the core of which is a status, to which rights and duties are attached. While it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth to an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for people born abroad of Italian descent, it is a status that necessarily requires verification (either administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the rights of an Italian citizen. For none of the recipients of the new regulations is there legal certainty regarding their status as Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the recipients of Article 3-bis, there is certainty that, since the status is not recognized, they could not practically enjoy the rights nor were they effectively subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.
It is true that foreign nationals of Italian descent did not have a specific duty to act before March 28, 2025, but it cannot be considered equivalent, from the perspective of reliance, those who acted compared to those who remained passive in the face of a status that requires prior verification for the effective enjoyment of the rights attached to it.
The second factor to consider is that Article 3-bis has a "corrective" nature, meaning it aims to defuse a situation caused by an unbalanced framework that perpetuated indefinitely a bond that, over generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has stated that "[t]he need to restore criteria of fairness and reasonableness and to remove the inequities and inconsistencies inherent in a system of favoritism is to be considered overriding with respect to the protection of reliance" (judgments No. 182 of 2022 and No. 136 of 2022; see also judgments No. 70 of 2024, No. 145 of 2022, No. 108 of 2019, No. 56 of 1989).
Finally, it must be noted that the retroactivity of the legal change could not be considered "absolutely unforeseeable" (judgment No. 70 of 2024), based on two different considerations. The lack of unpredictability arises, first, from what has just been said about the particularly favorable regime provided by the repealed norms (for example, judgment No. 182 of 2022), especially in comparison with other countries similar to Italy, which have introduced limits to the transmission of citizenship by ius sanguinis (see point 8.1.). Secondly, there had already been signals from Italy regarding the limitation of transmission by filiation and the appeals aimed at verifying citizenship: on October 9, 2024, the first draft laws were presented to introduce limits to citizenship by filiation (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024, a fee was introduced for appeals regarding citizenship, calculated per person rather than per case, as had been the practice until then (Article 1, paragraph 814, of Law No. 207 of December 30, 2024, containing the "State Budget for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for 2025-2027").
Nor can it be assumed that the introduction of limits was foreseeable, but not their retroactivity. As already stated, in the Italian case, a remedy directed only to the future would have left the problem to be solved entirely unchanged.
9.2.3.– Finally, when evaluating the reasonableness of the balance struck by the retroactive law, it is necessary to consider the "compensatory" measures contained in Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted.
As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions to facilitate the entry into Italy and the acquisition of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian descent.
In particular, two novelties concern Article 4 of Law No. 91 of 1992. Now, paragraph 1 provides for the acquisition of citizenship by benefit of law for foreigners who have a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Additionally, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by a foreign minor or stateless person who has a parent who is a citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, whose father or mother is a citizen by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or guardian declare their intention to acquire citizenship and one of the following conditions applies: a) after the declaration, the minor legally resides in Italy for at least two continuous years; b) the declaration is made within three years from the minor’s birth or from the subsequent date on which the filiation, including adoptive filiation, by an Italian citizen is established" (the deadline referred to in letter b has been extended from one to three years by Article 1, paragraph 513, letter a, of Law No. 199 of December 30, 2025, containing the "State Budget for the 2026 financial year and multi-year budget for the period 2026-2028"). Article 1, paragraph 1-ter, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, extends this possibility to the parents (who requested the recognition of citizenship before the decree) of minors born before the decree: "[f]or minors on the date of entry into force of the conversion law of this decree, children of citizens by birth under Article 3-bis, paragraph 1, letters a), a-bis) and b), of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided for by Article 4, paragraph 1-bis, letter b), of the same law may be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, on May 31, 2029" (this deadline has been extended from May 31, 2026, to May 31, 2029, by Article 1, paragraph 19-ter, of Decree-Law No. 200 of December 31, 2025, containing "Urgent provisions on regulatory deadlines," converted, with amendments, into Law No. 26 of February 27, 2026).
Furthermore, Article 1-bis of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, establishes "[d]ispositions to favor the recovery of Italian roots for descendants and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship," facilitating the entry into Italy for employed foreign descendants, without generational limits, and their naturalization. Under Article 27, paragraph 1-octies (introduced ex novo), of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998 (Consolidated Law on Immigration and Foreigners' Status), "[e]ntry and residence for work are allowed, outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, with the procedures set forth in Article 22, for foreign nationals residing abroad, descendants of Italian citizens and holding the citizenship of a destination country with significant flows of Italian emigration, identified by a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in agreement with the Ministers of the Interior, Labor, and Social Policies." This provision was implemented by the interministerial decree of November 17, 2025 (Identification of Destination Countries for Significant Flows of Italian Emigration, whose citizens, if descendants of an Italian citizen, are allowed to enter and reside in Italy for work outside the quotas referred to in Article 3, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 286 of July 25, 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis, paragraph 2, of the decree in question reduced the required residence period for the naturalization of the foreign descendant from three to two years (see the new text of Article 9, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law No. 91 of 1992).
9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations outlined in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3., it follows that the contested norms have reasonably balanced the reliance of the recipients with the constitutional principle of the effectiveness of citizenship.
Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for acquiring citizenship by filiation for foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient connection with Italy, while simultaneously protecting the reliance of those who had already obtained recognition of their status or had submitted an application (or at least received an appointment). The legislator intervened to address a divergence in the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already explained (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In matters of citizenship, the legislator enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by partially declaring inadmissible the issues raised about the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (judgment No. 142 of 2025). While acknowledging the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of descendants and the importance these communities have, from a cultural and economic perspective, for Italy—what in the decree in question has been translated into the favorable provisions recalled in point 9.2.3.—this Court therefore considers the issue raised regarding the violation of acquired rights to be unfounded.
10.– The referring judge also complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TFEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which grant Union citizenship to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.
This issue is also unfounded.
In point 8.2.5., the connection between Member State citizenship and European citizenship was already explained, and it was emphasized that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship granted by Member States must be based on a real relationship between the State and the citizen (see the cited Commission judgment). The decision in the 2025 Maltese case represents a coherent development of prior judgments, which found justified—although subject to proportionality review—national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, as they were aimed at "protecting the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty between it [the Member State] and its citizens, as well as the reciprocity of rights and duties, which constitute the foundation of the citizenship bond" (Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, para. 51; similarly, the cited judgments in Stadt Duisburg, para. 37, and Tjebbes, para. 31; Grand Chamber, judgment of 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, para. 52), and at ensuring the permanence of an effective link with the Member State: "It is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is an expression of an effective bond between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, the absence or cessation of such an effective link to the loss of its citizenship" (as stated again in the cited Tjebbes judgment, para. 35). However, "given the importance that Union primary law attributes to the status of Union citizen, which, as noted in paragraph 29 of this judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national courts to verify whether the loss of citizenship of the relevant Member State, when it leads to the loss of Union citizenship status and the rights derived from it, respects the principle of proportionality with regard to its consequences on the situation of the individual concerned and, if necessary, on that of their family members, under Union law" (see the cited Court of Justice judgment in Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 38).
The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is unfounded due to the irrelevance of the cited case law in relation to the contested norms. The judgments of the Court of Justice cited above all concern cases in which a Member State deprived an individual of a recognized status (national citizen and, consequently, European citizen), thereby affecting rights that could be concretely exercised by the individual. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving citizenship fall within the scope of Union law when they lead to the loss of a recognized status and the associated rights (judgments Rottmann, para. 49; Stadt Duisburg, para. 36; Tjebbes, para. 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 30; Wiener Landesregierung, paras. 39-41 and 48; also see Grand Chamber, judgment of 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, para. 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures that have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as Union citizens"). The Court of Justice emphasizes that the consequences of norms depriving citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual": judgment Tjebbes, para. 40 (similarly, judgments Stadt Duisburg, para. 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, para. 54; Wiener Landesregierung, para. 59).
Precisely because national norms affect the rights linked to European citizenship, the Court of Justice requires an individual examination of the consequences for the lives of those concerned, in line with the principle of proportionality. Such an examination would not even be conceivable if the status of European citizen has not been recognized, and thus no rights are concretely exercisable by the individuals involved. The rationale of European case law is to protect Union citizenship as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: this rationale does not apply in the present case because, for none of the recipients of the contested Article 3-bis, the status of European citizen was legally certain.
In conclusion, the judgments of the Court of Justice cited by the referring court are not pertinent because the contested norms, as clarified in point 8.3., do not provide for the loss of Italian citizenship.
Since it is clear that the case law of the Court of Justice limits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences of norms depriving citizenship) to cases where the individual loses a recognized status and the related rights that can be concretely exercised, the request made by the parties for a preliminary ruling on the compatibility between the contested Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU must be rejected. Indeed, when there are doubts about the content of Union law, which arises in a constitutional legitimacy review, this Court may refer the matter to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. In the present case, however, the judgments of the latter related to Articles 9 TFEU and 20 TFEU make it clear, for the reasons outlined above, that the conditions exist which, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to make a preliminary reference (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, judgments of 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management and Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; judgment of 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).
11.– The referring court cites this case law and criticizes Article 3-bis for not having "provided any intertemporal mechanism that would allow for the preservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a 'window period' during which one could submit an administrative or judicial request for the recognition of citizenship)."
This issue is inadmissible.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a binding international act, as it is incorporated into UN General Assembly Resolution 217A. Therefore, Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unable to form the basis of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, which refers to "obligations arising from international treaties." This renders the issue inadmissible due to insufficient reasoning regarding its manifest unfoundedness, as the referring court does not explain why the Declaration would give rise to an international obligation capable of "activating" Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (judgments No. 185, No. 95, and No. 142 of 2025, No. 194 of 2018).
The question remains open as to whether Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, since the referring court specifically mentions Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution (not Article 10, first paragraph, of the Constitution) and "treaty law," and does not invoke any international customary law corresponding to the content of the provision in question.
12.– Finally, the referring judge complains about the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, which states that "[n]o one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a citizen."
This issue is also inadmissible.
The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship; it only governs, in Article 3 of Protocol No. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals" as follows: "1. No one shall be expelled, by virtue of an individual or collective measure, from the territory of the State of which they are a national. 2. No one may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which they are a national." Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, but not the right to have or retain citizenship. The explanatory report accompanying Protocol No. 4 states that the Committee of Experts (responsible for drafting the text of the Protocol) proposed including a provision that would have prohibited a State from depriving its citizen of nationality for the purpose of expelling them. However, "the majority of the experts thought it was inadvisable in Article 3 to touch on the delicate question of the legitimacy of measures depriving individuals of nationality" (para. 23). Thus, Article 3 of Protocol No. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving individuals of nationality, only prohibiting those that affect the right to remain for those who are already citizens.
From the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it follows that: a) there is no guaranteed right to acquire or retain a certain nationality under the ECHR (for example, judgment of 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, para. 41); b) "arbitrary denial" of nationality could affect the right to private life under Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be assessed under the domestic law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, para. 41; see also judgments of 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, paras. 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, paras. 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4, is reserved only for nationals of that State (Grand Chamber, judgment of 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, paras. 205 and 245).
From an obiter dictum in the cited H.F. judgment, it appears that the deprivation of nationality imposed to prevent the citizen from entering the territory could be "problematic" in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 (para. 249). However, the European Court refers to an act concerning individuals who, before the harmful act, had the right to enter because they were recognized as citizens, not to an act (such as the decree in question) involving individuals who did not have a genuine right of entry into Italian territory because their citizenship had not been recognized.
The referring court does not address any of the above points, failing to argue the relevance of Article 3, paragraph 2, in relation to the contested norms. This leads to the inadmissibility of the issue due to insufficient reasoning on the manifest unfoundedness.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of L.A. T. and others, L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. and others, and L.P. C.G.;
- declares inadmissible the interventions in the case of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians Abroad, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti" of Socorros Mutuos;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares inadmissible the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3, paragraph 2, of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, made effective by Presidential Decree No. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded;
- declares the issue of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law No. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 2025, as converted, raised—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, in single-judge composition, with the ordinance indicated in the heading, as unfounded.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Deposited in the Registry on April 30, 2026
The Director of the Registry
Signed: Roberto MILANA
ATTACHMENT:
ORDINANCE READ AT THE HEARING OF MARCH 11, 2026
ORDINANCE
It is noted that the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, with the ordinance registered under No. 167 of the 2025 ordinances register and published in the Official Journal on September 17, 2025, No. 38, raised constitutional legitimacy issues regarding Article 3-bis—limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article" and the conditions provided in letters a), a-bis), and b)—of Law No. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New Norms on Citizenship), introduced by Article 1, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent Provisions on Citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 74 of 23 May 2025, for violating Articles 2, 3, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution;
that, with an act deposited on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the constitutional proceedings;
that the intervenors state they are plaintiffs in a case for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Ordinary Court of Campobasso;
that the Court of Campobasso suspended this case and raised constitutional legitimacy issues—under the ordinance registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, currently being published in the Official Journal—on the same norms contested by the Court of Turin;
that the intervenors argue for the admissibility of the intervention, observing that the decision this Court will adopt on the issues raised by the Court of Turin would affect both the constitutional legitimacy case raised by the Court of Campobasso and the pending ordinary case before it;
that A. L.A. and J. L.A. request to intervene to propose a joint hearing of the present case and the one registered as No. 40 of the 2026 ordinances register, to avoid prejudice to their right of defense;
that they argue the timeliness of the intervention, noting that it would have been impossible to file the related act by 7 October 2025, as the interest to intervene arose only after the referring order of the Court of Campobasso on 9 February 2026;
that they emphasize, in this regard, that due to the procedures required for powers of attorney issued abroad, the lawyer was only able to receive the power of attorney on 3 March 2026.
Considering that, based on Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, third-party interventions in incidental constitutional legitimacy cases "shall take place in the manner and within the deadline of the previous paragraph," that is, "within the peremptory deadline of twenty days from the publication of the ordinance in the Official Journal";
that, in the present case, the deadline expired on 7 October 2025 and the intervention act by A. L.A. and J. L.A. was deposited on 8 March 2026, with no relevance to the date of the referred order by the Court of Campobasso;
that this Court has affirmed the peremptory nature of the deadline for filing the intervention act (see, among others, judgment No. 198 of 2022 and ordinance No. 24 of 2021);
that, in any case, the necessary steps for the power of attorney are generally not an insurmountable impediment to meeting the deadline, nor have any real and effective circumstances been alleged that could justify a potential extension of the deadline;
that, ultimately, the intervention by A. L.A. and J. L.A. must be declared inadmissible.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares inadmissible the intervention filed by A. L.A. and J. L.A. in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings initiated by the Ordinary Court of Turin, specialized section in immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens.
Signed: Giovanni Amoroso, President
The anonymized version is consistent, in the text, with the original
The judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court are published in the first special series of the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic (in accordance with Articles 3 of Law No. 839 of 11 December 1984 and 21 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 1092 of 28 December 1985) and in the Official Collection of the judgments and orders of the Constitutional Court (in accordance with Article 29 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, approved by the Constitutional Court on 16 March 1956).
The text published in the Official Gazette is the official version and takes precedence in case of any discrepancies.