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 proceedings regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New rules on citizenship), introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent provisions regarding citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025, referred by the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, in the proceedings between M.E. E.A. et al. and the Ministry of the Interior, by order of 25 June 2025, registered under no. 167 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic, no. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having examined the briefs for appearance filed 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. on their own behalf and on behalf of their minor child J.I. M.V., as well as the petitions for intervention by L.P. C.G., L.A. F., the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, L.A. T. et al., the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti” of Socorros Mutuos, R. D.C.R.R. et al. and, filed out of time, by A. L.A. and J. L.A., as well as the petition for intervention by the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard Judge Giovanni Pitruzzella as rapporteur at the public hearing of 11 March 2026;

having 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 appearing parties, Corrado Caruso for M.E. E.A., as well as State Attorney Lorenzo D’Ascia for the President of the Council of Ministers;

having deliberated in the chambers on 11 March 2026.

Legal Findings

1.– The Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, has raised questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article” and to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law no. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New rules on citizenship), introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent provisions regarding citizenship), converted, with amendments, into Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025.

Article 3-bis provides as follows: "[b]y way of derogation from 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, any person born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, who possesses another citizenship shall be considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions is met: a) the individual’s status as a citizen is recognized, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, upon an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 11:59 PM, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the individual’s status as a citizen is recognized, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, upon 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 individual by the competent office no later than 11:59 PM, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the individual’s status as a citizen is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted no later than 11:59 PM, 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 was resident in Italy for at least two continuous years following the acquisition of Italian citizenship and prior to the birth or adoption of the child.”

1.1.– The referring court reports having been seized by eight Venezuelan citizens through a petition filed under Article 281-decies of the Code of Civil Procedure against the Ministry of the Interior, filed on 28 March 2025. The petitioners requested the judicial ascertainment of their status as Italian citizens iure sanguinis as descendants of the Italian citizen P.M. D., born in Turin in 1837, who subsequently emigrated to Venezuela and died there without ever having been naturalized as a Venezuelan citizen and having acquired Italian citizenship by virtue of the unification of 1861.

The referring court observes that, under the legislation prior to Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), the claim would have been well-founded, "notwithstanding the presence in the genealogical line of a female ancestor married to a foreign citizen with whom she had a child before the promulgation of the current 1948 Constitution.” It reports that, in another case brought by other descendants of P.M. D., the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Rome ascertained the status of Italian citizen (Order no. 23849 of 13 September 2023).

The referring court deems the new regulation dictated by Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992 applicable to the instant case, as the petitioners are Venezuelan citizens and do not fall under the "derogatory” categories referred to in letters a) through d) of Article 3-bis(1), not having filed an application for recognition via administrative channels and having filed a judicial application on 28 March 2025, i.e., one day after the deadline set by Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted). Furthermore, their ancestors did not possess exclusively Italian citizenship nor did they reside in Italy for two years.

2.– The referring court holds that the aforementioned Article 3-bis determines an implicit and retroactive revocation of the Italian citizenship that the petitioners had acquired by birth, and that it is constitutionally illegitimate due to violation of Articles 2, 3, and 117(1) 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(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, and Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, rendered enforceable by Decree of the President of the Republic no. 217 of 14 April 1982.

2.1.– With reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the referring court laments the violation of the principles of equality, reasonableness, and protection of legitimate expectations regarding legal certainty.

Regarding the first aspect, the referring court notes "the absolute arbitrariness of the treatment between those who had filed a judicial application before 28 March 2025 and those who filed it after, without the difference in the applicable legislation being in any way linked to any other relevant objective element.”

Regarding the second aspect, the referring court invokes the "protection of acquired rights,” holding that the expectation of legal certainty is the basis of the "social pact” upon which the republican order is founded. Reference is made to Judgment no. 69 of 2014 of this Court, according to which the institute of forfeiture could not, "by its nature, tolerate retroactive applications, ‘it being logically impossible to configure a hypothesis of extinction of a right [...] due to non-exercise by the holder in the absence of a prior determination of the deadline within which the right [...] must be exercised’ (Judgment no. 191 of 2005).” According to the referring court, these principles should apply in the present case, taking into account—in particular—the "particularly high ‘degree of consolidation’ of case law in the matter of citizenship iure sanguinis, which consists of an innumerable number of rulings that (in cases overlapping with the instant one) had peacefully recognized the right to citizenship.” Furthermore, an additional argument for the arbitrariness and unreasonableness of the mechanism introduced by the challenged norm ("implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision of intertemporal law”) could be derived from comparative experience. The referring court reports that, in Germany, a federal reform that entered into force on 1 January 2000 introduced, as an additional condition for the acquisition of German citizenship, the principle of place of birth, in addition to the principle of filiation. However, the German legislature rendered the "new (and more restrictive) legislation on citizenship applicable only to those born after 1 January 2000, without, that is, providing for any retroactive (and in peius) application.” This comparative experience would confirm the unsustainability of the legislative choice of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), which, with "immediate efficacy and retroactive effect,” disapplies the legislation regarding the acquisition of Italian citizenship by birth in force since 1912.

2.2.– According to the referring court, the challenged norm would also conflict with Article 117(1) of the Constitution, i.e., with the international obligations assumed by Italy. With reference to the violation of self-executing European Union norms, the referring court notes that the case law of this Court has settled in the sense of the so-called alternative nature of remedies (reference is made to Judgment no. 7 of 2025).

In particular, the violation of Article 9 TEU and Article 20 TFEU is lamented. The first provision establishes that "[i]n all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens, who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.” The second provision establishes, in paragraph 1, that "[c]itizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.”

This question would be admissible "by reason of the reflection that Italian citizenship produces regarding the holding of European citizenship”: the challenged norm, therefore, would affect Treaty provisions (those relating to citizenship) which have direct effect in our legal order.

The referring court cites the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular the Grand Chamber, Judgment of 5 September 2023, Case C-689/21, Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, according to which, "in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where national legislation has the effect of causing the person concerned to lose ipso iure the nationality of the Member State concerned and, consequently, the status of citizen of the Union on the date on which he or she attains the age of 22, that person must be allowed a reasonable period of time to submit an application for an examination by the competent authorities of the proportionality of the consequences of that loss and, if appropriate, for the maintenance or re-acquisition ex tunc of that nationality” (paragraph 50).

Therefore, the challenged norm would violate Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU for having failed to "provide for any mechanism of intertemporal law that would allow [...] the conservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a ‘time window’ within which to be able to submit an administrative or judicial application for recognition of citizenship).”

2.3.– Article 117(1) of the Constitution would also be violated in relation to Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to which "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.” The referring court contests "the arbitrariness of the criteria of ‘implicit revocation’ introduced by Article 1(1)(a) and (b) of Law Decree no. 36/2025, in the part in which they make the ‘revocation’ retroactive [...] to 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of the same Law Decree.”

2.4.– Finally, Article 117(1) of the Constitution would be violated in relation to Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 ECHR, according to which "[n]o one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national.” The challenged norm would deprive its addressees of the "right to enter Italian territory for the sole fact of not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Law Decree 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 intertemporal legislation such as to allow the persons concerned (i.e., Italians born abroad, in possession of another citizenship and lacking a ‘genuine link’ with Italy) to be duly informed of the regulatory changes that occurred, in order to be able to submit – within a reasonable time – the application (administrative or judicial) for recognition of citizenship iure sanguinis.”

The declaration of partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis would make it applicable only to persons born after the entry into force of Law Decree 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, "with the provision of an intertemporal law mechanism that guarantees the possibility (to all persons already born on the date of entry into force of Law Decree no. 36/2025) to submit an application for recognition of citizenship within reasonable terms.”

3.– The parties to the main proceedings appeared in these proceedings with a brief filed on 6 October 2025.

They, firstly, emphasize the adequacy of the reasoning on the relevance and non-manifest groundlessness and, therefore, the admissibility of the raised questions. Regarding the reference, contained in the order, to a manipulative intervention by this Court, according to the parties it would only have the meaning of "a mere observation of the powers and decision-making techniques sometimes employed” by this Court, which would be "free to identify the ruling most suitable for the reductio ad legitimitatem of the challenged provision”: the petitum of the order, however, would remain "‘ordinarily’ ablative.”

3.1.– On the merits, the parties observe that individuals could rely on "stable and coherent legislation” (which for 160 years has provided for the acquisition of citizenship iure sanguinis) and on case law constantly inspired by the principle of favor civitatis. They note that, for all children of an Italian parent, the "substantive title” to the status of citizen arises solely from the fact of birth, while the "formal title” to that status can be subsequently ascertained in court or through administrative channels, if it does not yet appear in the civil status registers. The ascertainment allows the exercise of rights correlated to the status.

According to the parties, being a status that is imprescriptible and permanent, "the individual has never had the legal duty to claim, during his or her life, the conservation of his or her Italian citizenship”: therefore, the failure to initiate the ascertainment procedure would not denote "‘negligence’ or ‘disinterest’.” For the extinction of the status civitatis, no automatism would be allowed: the loss of status could derive only from a conscious and voluntary act of the subject concerned. Our constitutional order would not even allow "cases of collective loss,” that is, "mass denationalization with respect to certain individuals,” which operates ex lege upon the occurrence of certain conditions.

The parties observe that the requirements for the acquisition of citizenship by descent would only be those dictated by the law in force at the time of birth. They recall Article 20 of Law no. 91 of 1992, according to which, "[u]nless expressly provided, the status of citizenship acquired prior to this Law does not change except for events occurring after the date of entry into force of the same.”

According to the parties, there would exist "an authentic fundamental right to the stability and safeguarding of citizenship already possessed” and for cases of extinction-deprivation of status "stringent and determined limits, respectful of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, must be respected.”

3.2.– Coming to the individual questions, the parties deem the one raised with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution to be well-founded, as the challenged norm would order "a real and proper retroactive revocation (a loss – deprivation) and ad nutum of citizenship.” The formula employed by the legislature of "failure to acquire ex tunc” of citizenship, therefore, would mask a hypothesis of automatic and retroactive revocation of the status in question, with consequent violation of the principles of proportionality and reasonableness. The challenged norm would provide "a paradigmatic example of proper retroactivity,” which "impoverishes the legal sphere of the addressees,” violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectations. That fact (birth abroad) should be qualified as extinctive which – although historically concomitant with a constitutive element – assumes legal relevance only with a law subsequent in time, with respect to the day on which the status arose. The challenged norm would determine a loss of collective, retroactive, automatic, coercive, and "surprise-effect” citizenship.

The doubts of constitutional legitimacy raised by the referring court would be confirmed in light of the criteria identified by this Court for the purpose of review of retroactive laws: the "degree of consolidation of the subjective situation originally recognized and then overturned by the retroactive intervention,” the predictability of the retroactive change, the overriding public interests, the "possibility of modifying the structure of relationships already defined by previous laws, when it results in concrete that the latter have produced results not responding to criteria of equity.” The challenged intervention would be disproportionate, erasing the status civitatis to the detriment of dual-nationality individuals born abroad, and unpredictable: therefore, the norm in question would be arbitrary and harmful to legitimate expectations and legal certainty. It would contemplate an "illegitimate automatism,” a deteriorating treatment that disregards the conduct held by the addressees and which would have a discriminatory character against dual-nationality individuals born abroad.

The parties note that the legislations of other Member States of the European Union would never have introduced "retroactive modifications that are deteriorating and limiting of acquired rights, in compliance with the principle of non-retroactivity in peius of modifications to citizenship laws.” In matters of citizenship, the principle tempus regit actum would apply; the regulation of the causes of acquisition and loss of status would be non-retroactive. The challenged norm would represent "a unique case within the European legal panorama.”

3.3.– The questions raised with reference to Article 117(1) of the Constitution would also be well-founded. The parties refer to the cited Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet judgment, invoked by the referring court. The challenged norm would be incompatible with European Union law "as it does not make it possible, for those affected by the consequences of the new regulation, to maintain citizenship [...] by exercising a reasonable option within a congruent term, or – at the limit – to re-acquire it upon simple request if the loss has been irreversibly perfected.”

The challenged norm would also violate the cited Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The revocation of citizenship would be arbitrary as it would not be based on "effective justificatory criteria,” but would be "correlated only to a point on the timeline”; it would strike "an indistinct plurality of persons” and would be "substantially discriminatory, as it is linked to the mere accident of birth outside the territory of the State.” Arbitrariness would not have been "even tempered by an adequate procedure in which the private party can defend his or her subjective legal position.”

Finally, there would also be a violation of Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 ECHR, according to which "[n]o one can be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national.” The challenged norm would deprive its addressees of the "right to enter Italian territory for the sole fact of not having requested (administratively or judicially) the recognition of their right by 11:59 PM on the day preceding the entry into force of Law Decree no. 36/2025.”

4.– The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney’s Office, intervened in the proceedings with a brief filed on 7 October 2025.

The State Attorney’s Office, primarily, raises an objection of inadmissibility of the questions due to lack of reasoning on relevance. In particular, the referring court’s affirmation regarding the existence of the prerequisites for the granting of the petitioners’ request would be apodictic and based on documentation that is "lacking and contradictory,” with reference to the non-naturalization of the Italian ancestor and his death certificate.

4.1.– The State’s defense then traces the regulatory and jurisprudential framework preceding Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), characterized by an expansive trend in 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 have increased by 51 percent, from 2013 to 2024, going 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 Attorney’s Office observes that for descendants of Italians, who possess iure soli the citizenship of the country of birth, the possession of Italian (and European) citizenship entails significant advantages, allowing, among other things, to emigrate to Spain. The enormous volume of requests for ascertainment of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis presented to consular offices, especially in South America, would have created long waiting lists, so that many would have turned to the ordinary judge, with a notable increase in litigation regarding citizenship: pending proceedings would have gone from 23,654 in 2022 to 61,628 in 2024, with the clarification that the appeal can be proposed jointly by multiple persons.

The exponential growth of the ascertainments of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, both via administrative and judicial channels, would have effects also 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 case of abrogative referendum).

The State Attorney’s Office observes that citizenship is granted also to persons who have no Italian ancestor, because spouses of citizens residing abroad can request, after three years of marriage, a facilitated naturalization, transmitting citizenship also to their possible minor children who have no bond even of blood with Italy.

The State’s defense then makes a comparative comparison, noting that the major European countries provide for limitations to the transmission of citizenship by descent to persons born and resident abroad and in possession of another citizenship.

The approval of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), therefore, would have become necessary "in consideration of the high risk of paralysis of organs and functions of the State as well as for reasons of appropriate alignment with the regulation, in the matter, in force in other European Union countries.” Faced with the non-deferrable need to intervene, the legislature would have chosen to "recover the traditional disfavor towards regimes of multiple citizenship,” also avoiding that the absence of effective ties with the Republic on the part of a growing number of citizens determines "risk factors for national security” and for the other European Union Member States. The challenged regulation, however, would also protect legitimate expectations, by safeguarding the recognitions already disposed of and the applications already filed.

According to the State Attorney’s Office, Article 3-bis would not entail any loss of already acquired rights, but would intervene exclusively on the mechanisms of transmission of Italian citizenship, introducing a preclusion to acquisition.

4.2.– Coming to the question raised with reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, the State’s defense observes that the legislature has broad discretion in the matter of acquisition and loss of citizenship, as confirmed by the only provision dedicated by the Constitution to the subject (Article 22).

It then considers the criteria identified by this Court for the purpose of review of retroactive laws.

Regarding the consolidation of the harmed legal situation, the State Attorney’s Office observes that the procedure for ascertainment of citizenship would be "formally declarative but in facts constitutive,” at the outcome of a complex preliminary investigation, with burden of proof on the applicant. It could not, therefore, be spoken of as a consolidated legal situation but, rather, as "a mere legal expectation.” The ascertainment procedure would be similar to that of naturalization. Before its positive outcome, no right would be exercisable and of no duty can fulfillment be requested.

Regarding the predictability of the change, according to the State’s defense the challenged norm would not have retroactive scope, not affecting "fully consolidated” legal situations and the concrete exercise of rights. Even admitting its retroactivity, it would not violate a legitimate expectation, it being difficult to configure such harm "in relation to the 60 million potential entitled parties in the world who have had decades [...] of time to be able to manifest their interest in the recognition of Italian citizenship but who deliberately have chosen to be uninterested.” On the contrary, given the comparative panorama, there existed "a well-founded expectation that also the Italian State would intervene with corrective measures, moreover notoriously under study by the legislature for many years.”

Regarding the public interests pursued, the State Attorney’s Office recalls the premises of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), and observes that, being the descendants of emigrated Italian citizens estimated at approximately 60 million, had the legislative intervention concerned exclusively the future born, the objectives indicated in those premises could not have been adequately realized. Even more serious consequences would have occurred in the case in which, to the entire potential audience, a term had been granted within which to submit the instance: the competent administrations would have been invested by an unimaginable number of applications, formulated precisely due to the existence of said deadline. The State’s defense notes that the challenged norm has provided the appropriate temperaments, in protection of situations of statelessness, of applications already filed, and of minors (Article 1(1-ter) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025, introduced during conversion), "to whom the responsibility for not having activated previously cannot be autonomously imputed.” The challenged regulation would, therefore, be proportionate.

Finally, regarding the necessity of the corrective intervention for the violation of the criterion of equity inherent in the previous situation, the State Attorney’s Office observes that the challenged regulation would be aimed at avoiding that "the very concept of ‘people,’ holder of sovereignty, becomes an indeterminable entity, dissolved from any tie with the national territory on which the State exercises sovereignty,” with consequent disparity of treatment between the millions of persons born and raised abroad, and citizens of other States to whom they owe ties of loyalty, and Italian citizens who live and work in the national territory. This would conflict "with elementary principles of reasonableness and equality, configuring an identical treatment of markedly differentiated situations.” The State’s defense cites the Judgment of the Court of Cassation, joint civil sections, 24 August 2022, no. 25317, according to which "the link of citizenship can never be founded on a fictio.” Over time, social, cultural, and economic ties with the country of emigration attenuate and, correlatively, the ties with the country of settlement become increasingly strong, until they become almost exclusive for subsequent generations.

4.3.– The State Attorney’s Office deems even the questions raised with reference to Article 117(1) of the Constitution to be unfounded.

The competences of States in matters of citizenship should be exercised in compliance with the principle of proportionality and loyal cooperation between them. The cited Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet judgment would have reiterated the legitimacy of national legislation "aimed at protecting the relationship of solidarity and loyalty between a Member State and its citizens and the reciprocity of rights and duties that constitute the foundation of citizenship.” The decisions of the Court of Justice on the obligations that States must respect when they revoke citizenship would concern different situations, because they concern cases in which the interested parties had been identified as citizens of the Member State, had enjoyed the rights and fulfilled the obligations connected with the status of citizen, and then had been recipients of individual decisions of loss or revocation of citizenship. Instead, Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) would limit the transmission of citizenship to those who, "for their whole life, behaved like a foreigner.”

Therefore, according to the State’s defense, it would be necessary to analyze European case law on the criteria for acquisition of citizenship, not on loss. 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 challenged regulation is in line with European law, but also that it would have "brought the necessary corrections to a regulatory system which, otherwise, could have resulted in conflict with the same EU law.” The previous regulatory framework, in fact, allowed the enjoyment of rights provided by the European order to subjects who do not boast any genuine connection with the European Union, "potentially injecting millions of people into the European-union area, without any form of control, with repercussions, also, on public safety, not only national,” and on the provision of social services. For example, two-thirds of Italians residing in Spain were born outside of Italy.

However, the challenged regulation would be proportionate also in light of European case law on the loss of citizenship: being an individual examination of the single positions excluded (which would entail the paralysis of the activity of administrative and judicial authorities), the presumed loss of citizenship would strike those who reside abroad, are holders of another citizenship and, "having chosen for their whole life not to ask for the recognition of citizenship, would not undergo in fact any change of their subjective situation.” At most, it would be a loss of the prospect of obtaining a future recognition: a possibility that is not precluded in the forms of naturalization, which Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) would have facilitated for Italian descendants.

Regarding the question raised with reference to international law, the State Attorney’s Office observes that "[t]here is not [...] any international norm, treaty-based or customary, that protects the absolute right of persons to possess a dual or multiple nationality.” The State’s defense then recalls the case law of the ECtHR, according to which there does not exist, neither in the ECHR nor in its Protocols, an autonomous right to citizenship, and Article 8 ECHR can be violated only if the measure is arbitrary and has an impact on the private life of the individual. The challenged regulation would respect the "requirements of reasonableness and proportionality findable in international law” and also the principle of non-discrimination, as it "applies in a homogeneous manner to an extended audience of subjects, not distinguished on the basis of differences of race, religion, sex, or other but simply on the basis of a different degree of connection with Italy, identified by the legislature in the single citizenship of the parent or grandparent.”

5.– On 6 October 2025, petitions for intervention were filed by: Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS); Confederation of Italians in the World; L.A. T. et al.; L.A. F.

The first states that it gathers professionals who operate in the sector of ascertainment and attainment of Italian citizenship: from this, a qualified interest in the intervention would result. AGIS acknowledges the case law of this Court, which requires a nexus between the position of the third party and the subject matter of the a quo proceedings, but believes that such a criterion should be "remodulated.” If elements useful to constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, with greater reason they could come from a subject like AGIS.

The Confederation of Italians in the World reports being an association that operates for the defense of the rights of Italians residing in other countries. Furthermore, it states that it has challenged the Circular of the Ministry of the Interior – Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, 28 May 2025, no. 26185 (Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025, converting, with amendments, Law Decree no. 36 of 28 March 2025, bearing "Urgent provisions regarding citizenship.” Initial operational instructions), relating to Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted). From this, a qualified interest in the intervention would result.

L.A. T. and the other five intervening subjects report having proposed (after 27 March 2025) judicial actions for the ascertainment of Italian citizenship. They, therefore, would be holders of the same "substantive relationship” that is the subject of the a quo proceedings. From this would derive the legitimacy for the intervention.

L.A. F. states that the challenged norm deprives him ex tunc of the status of Italian citizen: therefore, he would have a qualified interest in the intervention in the present proceedings. The case law of this Court on the admissibility of interventions would tolerate some exceptions. The drastic nature of the legislative choice, which deprives some subjects of the fundamental status of citizenship, would require "expanding representation in judgment.” The need to access procedural tools that are "novel” for the protection of status would result also from Article 391-quater of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides for the possibility of challenging for revocation "decisions that have become final whose content has been declared by the European Court of Human Rights contrary to” the ECHR (paragraph 1), if "the violation ascertained by the European Court has prejudiced a right of status of the person” (paragraph 1, number 1).

On 7 October 2025, petitions for intervention were filed by: Italian Association "Sardi Uniti” of Socorros Mutuos; R. D.C.R.R. et al.; L.P. C.G.

The first reports that it gathers the descendants of Sardinian emigrants in Argentina and states that it has a qualified interest in the intervention. The nexus with the subject matter of the a quo proceedings would result from the provision of amici curiae: if elements useful to constitutional judgment can be provided by amici curiae, with greater reason they could come from a particularly qualified third party, such as the association in question.

R. D.C.R.R. et al. report being parties to proceedings (promoted after 27 March 2025) analogous to that from which the questions under examination originate. They, therefore, would be holders of "a specific and qualified interest” in their acceptance.

L.P. C.G. reports being a party to proceedings analogous to that from which the questions under examination originate: such proceedings, however, were instituted after 27 March 2025. L.P. C.G. would be legitimized for intervention because the outcome of the present proceedings could irreparably prejudice his legal position.

5.1.– On 7 October 2025, the association Fondazione italiani.it ETS and Intercomites Brasil + 1 filed two opinions as amici curiae, admitted by presidential decree of 16 January 2026.

The former argues for the constitutional illegitimacy of the challenged norms, with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution and Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU. Intercomites Brasil + 1 observes that Article 3-bis would have ordered a revocation of citizenship and that its retroactive effects would violate the principle of proportionality, arguing on the point.

5.2.– On 18 February 2026, the parties filed an extensive integrative brief, in which they reply to the objection of inadmissibility and to the arguments of the State’s defense, lingering, in particular, on the administrative practice in citizenship ascertainment proceedings, on the comparative framework, and on the harm to acquired rights. In relation to the violation of Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU, the parties hypothesize a preliminary reference to the CJEU, should the Court have doubts on the meaning of those interposed norms.

On the same date, also the State Attorney’s Office filed an integrative brief, reiterating the inadmissibility and groundlessness of the raised questions.

On the same date, the intervenor AGIS also filed an integrative brief.

5.3.– With a brief filed on 8 March 2026, A. L.A. and J. L.A. intervened in the proceedings.

The intervenors report being petitioners in proceedings for the recognition of Italian citizenship, pending before the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Campobasso, which suspended it in order to raise questions of constitutional legitimacy – by order registered under no. 40 of the register of orders 2026 – on the same norms challenged by the Court of Turin. The intervention would be admissible as the decision that this Court will adopt on the questions under examination would condition the outcome of both the constitutional legitimacy proceedings promoted by the Court of Campobasso and the common proceedings pending before it.

Legal Reasoning

6.– The Court of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis – limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article” and to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) – of Law no. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted).

Article 3-bis provides as follows: "[b]y way of derogation from 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, any person born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, who possesses another citizenship shall be considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions is met: a) the individual’s status as a citizen is recognized, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, upon an application, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 11:59 PM, Rome time, on the same date; a-bis) the individual’s status as a citizen is recognized, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, upon 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 individual by the competent office no later than 11:59 PM, Rome time, on the same date of 27 March 2025; b) the individual’s status as a citizen is judicially ascertained, in accordance with the legislation applicable on 27 March 2025, following a judicial application submitted no later than 11:59 PM, 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 was resident in Italy for at least two continuous years following the acquisition of Italian citizenship and prior to the birth or adoption of the child.”

According to the referring court, the challenged norm would violate: a) Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, in reference to the principles of equality, reasonableness, and protection of legitimate expectations regarding legal certainty, as, on the one hand, it would be arbitrary to distinguish between those who requested the ascertainment of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after; on the other hand, acquired rights would be harmed, because Article 3-bis would determine an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision of intertemporal law”; b) Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which attribute citizenship of the Union to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State; c) Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to which "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”; d) Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 ECHR, according to which "[n]o one can 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 reiterate the inadmissibility of the intervention of A. L.A. and J. L.A., already declared by hearing order, attached to this judgment.

Also, the other interventions made in these proceedings are inadmissible.

With Judgment no. 142 of 2025 and Order no. 85 of 2025, this Court, in four proceedings concerning the norms that provided for the transmission of citizenship by filiation, without limits, declared inadmissible the interventions of two associations of descendants of Italian emigrants and two associations of jurists operating in the citizenship sector, as they boasted "an interest only indirect, connected in a general way to the statutory purposes of protection of their members” (Judgment no. 142 of 2025), different from that required by Article 4(3) of the Supplementary Rules for Proceedings before the Constitutional Court, according to which in the proceedings of constitutional legitimacy via incidental proceedings "[c]an intervene the holders of a qualified interest, inherent in a direct and immediate way to the relationship deduced in judgment,” having to be understood by "relationship deduced in judgment” as that subject of the a quo proceedings (ex multis, Judgment no. 199 of 2025; Order no. 60 of 2025). This applies "all the more so in consideration of the current Article 6 of the Supplementary Rules, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects that are bearers of collective or diffuse interests related to the issue of constitutional legitimacy to submit to this Court a written opinion in the capacity of amici curiae” (Judgment no. 142 of 2025).

In light of these precedents, relating to an affair symmetrical to the one now under examination, the inadmissibility of the intervention of AGIS, the Confederation of Italians in the World, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti” of Socorros Mutuos must be declared. Indeed, the proceedings before the Court of Turin have as their subject the request of eight Venezuelan citizens, aimed at the ascertainment of their status as Italian citizens by filiation, and none of the intervening subjects is the holder of an interest connected "in a direct and immediate way” with such proceedings.

Regarding the interventions of individual subjects, parties to proceedings analogous to the one from which the one under examination originates or in any case recipients of the challenged norm, it must be reiterated that "it is not sufficient, for the purpose of making the intervention admissible, the circumstance that the subject is the holder of interests analogous to those deduced in the main proceedings, or that he or she is a party in an analogous proceeding, but different from the a quo proceedings, on which the decision of this Court can influence, as the access of such a third party to the incidental proceeding of constitutional legitimacy would happen without the prior verification on the relevance and non-manifest groundlessness of the questions by the referring court” (Order no. 85 of 2025). The inadmissibility of the interventions of L.A. T. et al., L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. et al., and L.P. C.G. must therefore be declared.

7.1.– Still on the procedural point, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Attorney’s Office, for insufficient reasoning on relevance, must be examined. In particular, the referring court’s affirmation regarding the existence of the prerequisites for the granting of the petitioners’ request would be apodictic and based on documentation that is "lacking and contradictory,” with reference to the non-naturalization of the Italian ancestor and his death certificate (which occurred in 1901).

The objection is not well-founded.

The referring court argues extensively on the existence of the requirements for the granting of the request (however impeded by the challenged norm), citing the documents – produced in the a quo proceedings – relating to the Italian citizenship by birth of the emigrated ancestor, to his non-naturalization in Venezuela (which would have caused the loss of Italian citizenship: see the subsequent point 8.1.), to the birth and marriages of the descendants, among whom are the petitioners in the a quo proceedings. 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 conformity with the case law of the Court of Cassation (joint civil sections, Judgment 25 February 2009, no. 4466; see the subsequent point 8.1.). Finally, the referring court recalls that other descendants of the emigrated Italian ancestor, of the daughter, and of the grandson obtained the ascertainment of Italian citizenship, with the Order of the Court of Rome no. 23849 of 2023. The argumentation on relevance, therefore, is more than sufficient.

8.– Before examining the individual questions of constitutional legitimacy, a premise is appropriate, articulated in three parts: the first, aimed at providing a historical framing of the regulation of the transmission of Italian citizenship and at highlighting the peculiarities of the Italian situation (point 8.1.); the second, aimed at examining the impact of the entry into force of the Constitution and the progressive divergence, with respect to it, of the legislative discipline on citizenship (point 8.2.); the third, aimed at illustrating the meaning of the challenged norms and their ratio (point 8.3.).

8.1.– Citizenship is a "constitutionally protected legal status which entails a series of rights in the field of private and public law and, furthermore, in particular, political rights” (Judgment no. 87 of 1975). In Italy, the basic criterion for its acquisition is the relationship of filiation, based on Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law no. 91 of 1992. Before Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), the transmission to descendants occurred without time limits. Judgment no. 142 of 2025 of this Court declared partly inadmissible and partly unfounded the questions raised on the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation.

The status civitatis founded on the bond of filiation has a "permanent and imprescriptible [and] justiciable nature at any time based on the simple proof of the acquisitive case integrated by birth from an Italian citizen” (Cass., joint civil sections, judgments 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 accepted the rule of unlimited ius sanguinis in the direct agnatic line, in a historical context in which, as is known, suffrage was very limited. As results from the Compendium of Italian electoral statistics, drawn up in 1946 by the Central Institute of Statistics and the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly, in 1865 the active political electorate belonged to 2.08 percent of the population. Based on Articles 1, 2, and 3 of Law no. 593 of 22 January 1882 (Political Electoral Law), it rose to 7.39 percent of the population, being reserved for literate males having at least 21 years of age, in possession of specific education or census requirements (the latter not realizable by Italians abroad, as they concerned the payment of direct taxes).

Article 11(1) of the 1865 Civil Code expressed an orientation of disfavor towards dual citizenship ("Citizenship is lost [...] 2° By he who has obtained citizenship in a foreign country”), but such provision was interpreted restrictively, because the term "obtained” referred only to hypotheses of voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship (Court of Naples, Judgment 6 October 1907). Therefore, the chain of transmission of Italian citizenship was not interrupted in case of acquisition iure soli of foreign citizenship by the descendants of the Italian emigrant.

The criterion of transmission of citizenship by filiation was confirmed by Law no. 555 of 13 June 1912 (On Italian citizenship), which also dealt with the problem of the loss of Italian citizenship linked to the original (and therefore involuntary) acquisition iure soli of the citizenship of the country of emigration, on the assumption that the phenomenon of dual citizenship should be avoided. The choice of the 1912 legislature was that for a model of opting out, proposed by Vittorio Polacco, whereby Italian citizenship was lost only by express declaration (Article 7: "Save for special provisions to be stipulated with international treaties, the Italian citizen born and resident in a foreign State, by which he is held to be its own citizen by birth, conserves Italian citizenship, but, having become of age or emancipated, can renounce it”); the opposite solution of opting in, advocated by Vittorio Scialoja, whereby the Italian citizen who had received iure soli foreign citizenship would have lost – with the age of majority – the Italian one acquired iure sanguinis, save for express declaration of wanting to conserve it, resulted instead defeated.

In the fifty years from 1876 to 1925, over 16.5 million Italian citizens emigrated to various world destinations, the majority (about 8.9 million people) directed towards the American continent, in countries where ius soli was in force (see the brief filed by the National Institute of Statistics – ISTAT on 14 April 2025 in the 1st Commission of the Senate, Constitutional Affairs, in relation to the conversion bill of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025). Thus, an enormous mass of foreign citizens was formed who also maintained Italian citizenship, almost always not ascertained.

Over the years, the dimension of the phenomenon of dual citizenship has doubled, also by virtue of legal factors. On the one hand, this Court, with Judgments no. 87 of 1975 and no. 30 of 1983, declared constitutionally illegitimate the norms that provided for the loss of citizenship by the Italian woman who acquired the citizenship of the foreign husband, by effect of marriage (Article 10(3) of Law no. 555 of 1912), and that did not attribute citizenship by birth to the child of a citizen mother (Article 1, number 1°, of Law no. 555 of 1912); on the other hand, the Court of Cassation held that the norms declared illegitimate were inapplicable also to cases prior to the entry into force of the republican Constitution (see the cited Judgment no. 4466 of 2009).

The Italian situation has assumed, therefore, over time, characteristics of complete peculiarity. The massive migratory phenomenon, united with the absence of limits to the transmission of citizenship by filiation, has created a multitude of foreign citizens endowed with a "virtual” Italian citizenship, in that not ascertained, activatable without time limits by the holders (the technical report to the conversion bill of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 estimates at over 60 million the Italian-descendants). The Italian discipline represented an isolated case at the comparative level, because other countries have over time introduced limitations to the transmission of citizenship by filiation: in France, see Articles 23-6 and 30-3 of the Civil Code (text of 1993); in Germany, Section 4(4) of the Citizenship Law (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz – StAG); in the United Kingdom, Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act of 1981; in Spain, Article 24 of the Código Civil.

Such situation remained unchanged not only following the extension of male active electorate, which occurred with Law no. 665 of 30 June 1912 (On the reform of political electoral law), but also after the events that, between 1945 and 1948, radically changed the scenario: the introduction of female suffrage (Lieutenant-General Legislative Decree no. 23 of 1 February 1945, bearing "Extension to women of the right to vote”) and the entry into force of the republican Constitution. As will be seen immediately, the maintenance of the original norms, arisen in a very different context, has determined a tendential disharmony of the legislative discipline on citizenship with respect to the constitutional structure.

8.2.– The transformation of the form of State determined by the Constitution has entailed an essential modification of the status of citizen. Indeed, universal full suffrage and the republican Constitution have connected the status civitatis and the status activae civitatis, which, instead, in the "single-class State,” based on restricted suffrage for reasons of census and education, were disjoined.

The Constitution has realized a "Copernican revolution” in the relationship between citizens and the State apparatus, because it has entrusted the former, gathered in the people, with sovereignty, not only quoad titulum, but also quoad exercitium.

The provision according to which sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits provided by the Constitution (Article 1(2) of the Constitution), is concretized in the provisions that attribute to citizens the rights of democratic participation, in particular active and passive electorate (Articles 48 and 51 of the Constitution), the participation in the determination of 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, political decisions binding the state community are taken through the concurrence of the same citizens who are subject to those decisions. In this way, a congruence is established between being subjects in a durable manner to a determined political dominion, as components of the people of the State, and being holders of rights of democratic participation. The democratic principle, thus understood, allows reconciling the permanence of political dominion – which entails the distinction between rulers and ruled, between command and obedience – and the principle of self-determination of the citizens who form the sovereign people.

It follows that citizens are bound in a substantial manner to the life of the democratic State, which they constitute and support, giving rise to a community of political destinies. They, through democratic cooperation in the decisions that involve the community, are co-responsible for what happens to it and suffer its consequences, both those advantageous and those that imply burdens and sacrifices.

8.2.1.– The democratic participation that gives life to a community of political destinies is rooted in an effective tie between citizens and the national community. The necessity of this tie emerges clearly from some constitutional principles.

In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution establishes a nexus between the territory (the concept of "Italy” includes the geographical place), the people, and sovereignty, in the sense that sovereignty is exercised over the territory and cannot belong to a multitude of citizens disconnected from that territory.

Article 4(2) states that "[e]very citizen has the duty to perform, according to his own possibilities and his own choice, an activity or a function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society.” Active commitment in the national community, therefore, is an element consubstantial to the constitutional vision of citizenship, which entails the existence of an effective set of relationships, social ties, sharing of experiences and responsibilities, which constitute the basis of the community of political destinies.

The constitutional nexus between citizenship and active commitment in the national community constitutes the logical development of what is established by Article 3(2) of the Constitution, which, on one hand, entrusts to the Republic the task of removing the obstacles of economic and social order that limit in fact the freedom and equality of citizens, on the other hand, connects such task of the Republic to the objective of making participation in the political, economic, and social organization of the country effective, as well as by Article 2, which requires "the fulfillment of the mandatory duties of political, economic, and social solidarity.” It is then to be remembered that, based on the fundamental norm of Article 1(1) of the Constitution, the Republic is "founded on work.”

Finally, Article 54(1) of the Constitution establishes that "citizens have the duty to be faithful to the Republic and to observe its Constitution and laws.” Indeed, if also foreigners present in the territory of the State have the obligation to respect its Constitution and laws, the "duty of faithfulness” is peculiar 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 linked by effective ties between its members, constituted by solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, commitment to the progress of society, sharing of common destinies. In the same perspective, this Court, underlining the pertinence of the tax duty to the pactum unionis rather than to the subiectionis, has observed that, in the constitutional perspective, "what is at the center is no longer so much the State and the tax power [...] but other conceptual categories that pertain to the person situated within the community, to the relationships that derive from the social ties in which he or she is immersed, to the bonds of solidarity that ensue and that it is for the legislature to define, inspiring itself to progressivity and in compliance with the ability to contribute” (Judgment no. 137 of 2025, point 6).

8.2.2.– The broader guarantee of pluralism offered by the Constitution (Articles 2, 6, 8, 18, 19, 33, 39, 41, 49 of the Constitution) means that the people are articulated in a multiplicity of formations, political, economic, social, religious, cultural. But the "people as multiplicity” is joined by the "people as unity.” The richness of pluralism, in its multiple dimensions, does not exclude, in fact, that the people can express themselves as unity – in particular, in its guise as an electorate – and that the Constitution configures it, in its first article, as a unitary subjective figure. To the famous We the People with which the US Constitution opens corresponds the lapidary affirmation according to which "[s]overeignty belongs to the people.” Analogously to the expression used by the US Constitution, it founds the democratic order on a "singular plural,” on a "collective I,” which necessarily presupposes a link with a territory – sovereignty, in fact, is exercised in a determined territorial space – and the sharing of some material principles that create the sense of common belonging, of collective identity.

In this regard, this Court has emphasized that "constitutional norms evoke a correlation between citizenship and territory of the State, as a place that reflects a common cultural humus and the sharing of constitutional principles” (Judgment no. 142 of 2025, point 11.2.). Therefore, citizens constitute the people in that, in addition to the bond structured through some form of participation in collective life, solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, they tendentially share constitutional principles, which are the expression of the civic values on which the Republic is founded. In this way, the citizen experiences himself or herself as a member not of a casual assembly of individuals, but of 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 allows justifying the operation of the majority rule, necessary to ensure the functioning of representative democracy (Article 64 of the Constitution). Indeed, the power of the majority to adopt political decisions that concern the entire community without the minority feeling dominated by an "other,” in contradiction with the democratic principle, presupposes that both the majority and the minorities perceive themselves as being part of the same community and therefore linked by bonds that transcend the single decision or the political direction of a specific Government.

8.2.3.– The Constitution dedicates to the regime of citizenship only one provision, and that is Article 22, according to which no one can be deprived, for political reasons, of citizenship. The lack of other constitutional rules means that the legislature – as this Court has pointed out – enjoys broad discretion in the discipline of the institute (Judgments no. 25 and no. 142 of 2025). However, this Court has also clarified that norms on citizenship are not subtracted from the judgment of constitutional legitimacy and that the Constitution anyway outlines "traits of citizenship, immersed in the complexity of the constitutional text” (Judgment no. 142 of 2025, point 11.2.).

In the absence of precise constitutional rules to apply to the citizenship regime, account must be taken of the complex of principles examined, from the fabric of which emerges a very general model of citizenship (with few essential traits), to which ordinary legislation should refer, albeit in a space characterized by broad margins of discretion.

Three aspects of this model, identified in the previous points, must be underlined: a) citizens are holders of the rights of democratic participation in the formation of political decisions that concern them, making the people a community of political destinies, and are, in principle, subjected to both the advantages and the sacrifices and burdens that derive from the complex of such decisions; b) citizenship implies an effective tie with the people and with the State, which entails the commitment to the progress of society and the fulfillment of the duties of solidarity; c) the effective tie of the citizen with the people is also constituted by the sharing of a common "cultural humus” and of constitutional principles, expressions of the civic values on which the Republic is founded (see cited point 11.2. of Judgment no. 142 of 2025).

8.2.4.– Well then, legislation like that preceding the decree under examination, which allowed even persons not having any effective tie with the republican community to obtain without any limitation Italian citizenship and, therefore, to compete (in case of ascertainment) in the determination of the decisions that apply to such community, looking closely, departed notably from the model of citizenship delineated above. It allowed, in fact, to compete in the political decisions concerning the community also to those who had not contributed to its progress, did not participate in common destinies, and could easily avoid the sacrifices and obligations deriving from such decisions.

Furthermore, the fact that persons substantially alien to the national community, through the acquisition of citizenship, could be decisive for the formation of the political majority (or for the outcome of a referendum) weakened the legitimacy of the majority principle. Indeed, other citizens, who had not competed in the formation of such majority, but had between them an effective tie, would have perceived the political decisions adopted by it as imposed from the "outside.”

The problematic aspects just exposed have been accentuated with the reforms that have introduced the vote of Italians abroad: Constitutional Laws no. 1 of 17 January 2000 (Amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution concerning the establishment of the Abroad constituency for the exercise of the right to vote of Italian citizens residing abroad), and no. 1 of 23 January 2001 (Amendments to Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution concerning the number of deputies and senators representing Italians abroad), implemented with Law no. 459 of 27 December 2001 (Rules for the exercise of the right to vote of Italian citizens residing abroad).

8.2.5.– The discipline of citizenship must, furthermore, respect the principles that concern the citizenship of the Union (Judgment no. 142 of 2025, point 11.3. of the Legal Reasoning). The fact that a matter – such as citizenship – falls under the competence of Member States does not prevent that, in situations falling under the scope of application of European Union law, national norms must respect the latter (CJEU, fourth section, Judgment 25 April 2024, joined cases from C-684/22 to C-686/22, Stadt Duisburg, point 34). This obligation finds its coverage, under the profile of national constitutional law, in Articles 11 and 117(1).

The holding of the citizenship of a Member State constitutes the premise for the attribution of European citizenship, from which derives the enjoyment of some rights, among which full freedom of circulation and the right to vote and to be eligible in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections in the Member State of residence, under the same conditions as citizens of said State (Article 20 TFEU), as well as all other rights that the judges of Luxembourg have founded on the aforementioned freedom of circulation.

From what has been exposed follow two consequences: a) the discipline of the conditions of acquisition of national citizenship must take into account the effect of attribution of European citizenship and, therefore, cannot prejudice the legal-constitutional meaning of the latter; b) the revocation of national citizenship has an immediate impact on the holding of European citizenship and therefore on the enjoyment of the rights deriving from it, with the consequence that it must respect some Euro-union principles, such as that of proportionality.

On all this, we will return at the moment of examining the specific complaint relating to the violation of Article 117(1) 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 attributing citizenship, must take into account the fact that "the foundation of the bond of citizenship of a Member State resides in the particular relationship of solidarity and loyalty existing between such State and its citizens as well as in the reciprocity of rights and duties,” because that relationship "constitutes also the foundation of the rights and obligations that the treaties reserve to citizens of the Union”; b) European citizenship is founded "on the common values contained in Article 2 TEU and on the mutual trust that Member States accord each other as to the fact that none of them exercises such competence in a way that is manifestly incompatible with the very nature of citizenship of the Union” (Court of Justice, Commission Judgment, points 96-97 and 95).

Therefore, there must exist a relationship of coherence between the constitutional structure of national citizenship and the regime of European citizenship. The reconstruction of citizenship in the democratic order carried out in the previous paragraphs harmonizes and integrates perfectly with the needs of European citizenship (Judgment no. 142 of 2025, point 11.3.). Indeed, in coherence with what was affirmed by the judges of Luxembourg, an effective relationship of solidarity and loyalty between the State and the 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 some civic values, which are at the foundation of both the Republic and the European Union. Constitutional principles, which contribute to the creation of an effective tie of the citizen with the national community, are in large part superimposable and in any case always coherent with the values enumerated by Article 2 TEU, which stand at the base of the "European society.” Precisely this homogeneity of values allows the same individual to feel at once Italian and European and to have a dual affiliation, to the Italian people and to the "European society.”

8.3.– It is now the moment to illustrate the content of the challenged norms.

Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), derogates ex tunc to the norms (illustrated in point 8.1.) that provide for the unlimited transmission of citizenship by filiation. In essence, it establishes that "[a]ny person born abroad, even before the date of entry into force of this article, who possesses another citizenship shall be considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship,” unless one of the following conditions is met: a) the status of citizen is recognized (via administrative or judicial channel) following an application submitted by 11:59 PM on 27 March 2025, or subsequently, on the day indicated by an appointment communicated to the individual by the competent office by 11:59 PM on 27 March 2025; b) a parent or a grandparent possesses, or possessed at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship (this requirement is specified by the Circular of the Ministry of the Interior no. 26185 of 2025); c) a parent or adoptive parent was resident in Italy for at least two continuous years following the acquisition of Italian citizenship and prior to the birth or adoption of the child.

The meaning of such discipline is reconstructed in opposite terms by the State Attorney’s Office and the referring court (with which the appearing parties agree). According to the former, it would not have retroactive effects, applying to future recognitions of citizenship. According to the latter, Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992 would order an implicit and retroactive revocation of citizenship for all its addressees.

Neither of these perspectives is shareable.

The discipline under examination represents an exemplary case of proper retroactivity, in that the legal effects of previous norms are excluded ex tunc, that is, Article 3-bis attributes to previous facts "legal consequences different from those proper to them in the temporal framework of reference” (Judgment no. 173 of 2019).

On the other hand, the new provision is clear in configuring an original preclusion to the acquisition of Italian citizenship for foreigners born abroad, and not a revocation. Also from a "topographical” point of view, Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) has inserted the new discipline (Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992) immediately after that relating to acquisition by filiation (Articles 1, 2, and 3), not in the context of the provisions dedicated to revocation (Article 10-bis) and loss of citizenship (Article 12).

The failure to use the institute of revocation is coherent with the content of the norms under examination, which produce effects with respect to which revocation results conceptually extraneous. Indeed, both in general administrative law (Article 21-quinquies of Law no. 241 of 7 August 1990, bearing "New rules in matters of administrative proceedings and right of access to administrative documents”) and in the law on citizenship (Article 10-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992), revocation is an institute that operates ex nunc, in connection with surviving circumstances, whereas Article 3-bis produces effects ex tunc, in order to deal with a situation very far back (albeit worsened with the decades). Furthermore, revocation (as also the loss of citizenship regulated by Article 12 of Law no. 91 of 1992 and the annulment ex officio of the provision granting citizenship) hits a status already officially acquired by a single individual, while the norms under examination affect the non-officially recognized status of a multitude of persons. It is verifiably due to this that the particular locution used by the legislature ("is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship”): the use of the presumptive formula results adequate to the fact that for none of the addressees of the norms was the status of Italian citizen legally certain.

It is important to signal, moreover, that the decree under examination modifies other provisions, with the purpose of facilitating entry into Italy and the attainment of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian origin. Article 1(1-bis) modifies Article 4 of Law no. 91 of 1992, which regulates the acquisition of Italian citizenship by "benefit of law.” Furthermore, Article 1-bis of the same Law Decree dictates "[p]rovisions to favor the recovery of Italian roots of those of Italian descent and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship,” facilitating entry into Italy for subordinate work to the foreigner of Italian descent, without generational limits, and his or her naturalization (the necessary period of residence is reduced from three to two years): we will return to these novelties in point 9.2.3.

9.– We can now examine the individual questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Court of Turin.

As seen (point 6), the first question, which denounces the violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, includes two distinct sub-questions. In the first place, Article 3-bis would arbitrarily distinguish between those who requested the ascertainment of citizenship before 28 March 2025 and those who requested it after. In the second place, Article 3-bis would harm acquired rights, determining an "implicit revocation of citizenship with retroactive effect and without any provision of intertemporal law.”

9.1.– The first question is not well-founded.

In general, it certainly does not result singular the adoption of transitional norms that, on the occasion of a change of discipline, hold firm the application of the previous norms to already started proceedings. This Court has excluded the unreasonableness of such norms, underlining the broad discretion of the legislature in the limitation of retroactivity by means of transitional norms (Judgments no. 376 of 2008 and no. 246 of 1992).

In the case under examination, the challenged discipline has deemed to safeguard those foreigners of Italian origin who had already submitted an application for ascertainment of Italian citizenship (or had received an appointment), placing, therefore, a certain expectation on the application of the previous norms. The application for ascertainment is a circumstance that can be reasonably evaluated as suitable to differentiate those who proposed it, in that it increases the weight of their expectation. It remains unaffected, moreover (as extraneous to the a quo proceedings and therefore not raised by the referring court), the question relating to the differentiation between those who received the appointment and those who started the procedure for recognition of citizenship, but did not receive the appointment by 11:59 PM on 27 March 2025.

9.2.– Also the question relating to the harm to acquired rights is not well-founded.

The principle of legitimate expectation is derived from Article 3 of the Constitution (ex multis, Judgments no. 216 of 2023 and no. 169 of 2022) and is "subject to the normal balancing proper to all constitutional principles and rights” (Judgments no. 134 of 2025 and no. 182 of 2022 and, in the same sense, no. 108 of 2019). To evaluate if Article 3-bis has balanced in a non-unreasonable manner the legitimate expectation of foreigners of Italian origin with the constitutional interests pursued, it is necessary to consider the "weight” of the interest pursued by the challenged norms (point 9.2.1.) and the consistency of the harmed expectation (point 9.2.2.), taking into account the "compensatory” measures contained in Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) (point 9.2.3.).

9.2.1.– For the purposes of the first step of the review on the reasonableness of the balancing performed by the legislature, it is advisable to start from the preamble of the decree under examination, which analytically exposes the reasons that led to its adoption.

The leitmotiv is the principle of effectiveness, that is, the necessity that citizenship be reserved for those linked by "effective ties” with the Republic (this incise recurs four times in the preamble). The preamble begins by recalling the previous regime, in which the ascertainment of citizenship could be requested without time limit, regardless of "effective ties” with the Republic, and underlines that the enormous number of "potential Italian citizens” lacking ties with Italy constitutes a "serious and actual risk factor for national security” and for the other EU Member States.

The preamble then affirms the necessity of introducing "limitations in the automatic transmission of Italian citizenship” to persons born abroad, "conditioning it to clear indices of the existence of effective ties with the Republic.” Based on a joint consideration of the principles of which at Articles 1 and 3 of the Constitution, the necessity of not distinguishing based on the moment of birth is affirmed, that is, one excludes as unreasonable the distinction based on that element.

The preamble then declares, "in application of the principle of proportionality,” the opportunity to maintain Italian citizenship to those who have already obtained its recognition and to apply the previous norms to the already started ascertainment proceedings.

In essence, the purpose pursued by Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) is that of establishing the necessity of "effective ties with the Republic,” for the purpose of restoring the nexus between people, sovereignty, and territory (this is derived from the reference to Article 1 of the Constitution and is confirmed by the premise and point V of the illustrative report to the conversion bill of the Law Decree). Regarding the retroactive application of the new norms, it is justified with the consideration that the distinction based on the moment of birth (before or after the decree under examination) would be unreasonable, in that that moment is a "casual factor and not indicative of effective ties with the Republic.”

Thus clarified the interest had in mind by the legislature, it is necessary to specify that it – as seen in point 8.2. – places itself in line with the constitutional fabric that delineates the traits of citizenship.

The "weight” of the criterion of the genuine link, in addition to emerging also in legitimacy case law (Civil Cassation, first section, Judgment 8 February 2024, no. 3564, point 4; see then the cited Judgment of the joint civil sections, no. 25317 of 2022, point XI), finds confirmation broadening the gaze beyond our borders.

Such criterion is recognized, in the first place, by Article 7(1)(e) of the European Convention on Citizenship of 6 November 1997 (elaborated in the ambit of the Council of Europe), according to which the deprivation of citizenship by law is possible in case of "lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national habitually residing abroad.”

The criterion of the genuine link is also valued in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in decisions that concern both the conferment of citizenship (see the cited Commission Judgment), and the loss of it (for example, Grand Chamber, Judgment of 12 March 2019, Case C-221/17, Tjebbes, point 35); on the subject, we will return in point 10.

Finally, the importance of the principle of effectiveness of citizenship emerges also in the case law of other constitutional courts. With Decision no. 1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025, the Conseil constitutionnel rejected four questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité having as object Article 30-3 of the French Civil Code, which regulates the loss of citizenship by desuetude. The Conseil noted that the legislature pursued an objective of general interest, ending the iure sanguinis transmission of French citizenship at the moment in which it is devoid of any effectiveness. For its part, according to the Portuguese Constitutional Court (Judgment of 15 December 2025, no. 1133, which cites its own Judgment no. 599 of 2005), the discipline of citizenship "must give essential importance to the relationships that reveal situations of effective tie between the individual and the Portuguese State and the national community” (point 12). In the judgment of the same Court, of equal date, no. 1134 of 2025, it is reiterated that "[i]t will be, that is, arbitrary the deprivation of citizenship untied from motives that do not indicate the breaking of the effective tie between individual and State” (point 14.1). Finally, one can recall also the German Federal Constitutional Court, which affirmed that "the State cannot link citizenship to factual circumstances not relevant, which with it are not linked in a sufficient manner” [Judgment of 21 October 1987, Teso, in BVerfGE 77, 137 (153)] (translations curated by this Court).

Moreover, since the referring court contests not the new norms in themselves, but only their retroactive application, it is necessary to verify also the weight of the requirement, for the legislature, to make the principle of effectiveness operational ex tunc.

As seen in point 8.1., the legislature of 1912 adopted discipline inadequate to reach the objective of balancing the requirement of maintaining a tie with emigrants (and their descendants) with that of conserving an effective tie between them and Italy. The total absence of limits to the transmission of citizenship by filiation, united with the impressiveness of the migratory phenomenon, created a multitude of foreigners "potential Italian citizens” (so the preamble of the decree of 2025), the entity of which was (and is) unknown to the Italian State itself. Following the events of the years 1945-1948 (point 8.2.), a critical situation was determined from a legal-constitutional point of view, for the virtual belonging of political rights to millions of persons completely disconnected from Italy, and then also from an economic-social point of view, at the moment in which the "poles of attraction” were inverted and Italy became an immigration country. Since Law no. 91 of 1992 did not change the regulatory structure, the subsequent concrete manifestation of such criticalities was the enormous influx of applications at the consulates and of appeals at the Italian courts, aimed at the ascertainment of citizenship. If in December 2013 Italian citizens residing abroad were 4,482,115, of which 2,974,488 born abroad, in December 2024 they rose to 6,412,752, of which 4,496,297 born abroad (see the Table reported in the report to the conversion bill, point IV).

Limiting the effects of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) to the future born would have left the situation just described practically unchanged. In other terms, if the interest in maintaining an effective tie between Italian citizens and the Italian social fabric has the relevant weight illustrated above, analogous weight must be recognized to the requirement of applying retroactively the new conditions for the acquisition of citizenship. The finality pursued by the decree under examination would have been in large part frustrated if the challenged provisions had not turned also to the past, with the aim of remedying the effects of the previous norms.

9.2.2.– The second step of the test of reasonableness on retroactive law requires evaluating the consistency of the expectation of those who underwent the regulatory change caused by Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted).

Article 3-bis, excluding ex tunc the acquisition of Italian citizenship for a vast audience of persons, certainly has impacted on their expectation to be able, one day, to request the ascertainment of the status in question, for the purpose of exercising the relative rights (such as the right to reside stably in Italy and to vote).

The weight of such expectation, however, results weakened by the following circumstances.

The essential element to remark is that Article 3-bis does not impinge on consolidated positions, that is, on the status and rights of those who have already been recognized as Italian citizens, and not even on the position of those who have filed the application or have received the appointment. In coherence with what was affirmed in the preamble, the expectation of those, even if lacking real ties with Italian society, was deemed by the legislature to prevail over the interest underlying the principle of effectiveness.

Citizenship is a composite subjective position, the center of gravity of which is a status, to which are connected rights and duties. If it is true that status is acquired at the moment of birth from an Italian citizen, it is also true that, for persons born abroad of Italian origin, it is a status that requires necessarily an ascertainment (administrative or judicial), in the absence of which they do not enjoy the regime of the Italian citizen. For none of the addressees of the new discipline does there exist legal certainty in merit to their status of Italian citizens. On the contrary, for all the addressees of Article 3-bis exists the certainty that, not being the status recognized, they could not enjoy concretely the rights nor were they concretely subject to the duties incumbent on Italian citizens.

It is true that foreigners of Italian origin did not have a specific duty to activate themselves before 28 March 2025, but one cannot deem equivalent, in the perspective of expectation, those who activated themselves with respect to those who remained inert in the face of a status that requires prior ascertainment for the effective enjoyment of the rights connected to it.

The second factor to consider pertains to the fact that Article 3-bis has a "corrective” character, that is, it is aimed at defusing a situation caused by a discipline unbalanced in perpetuating ad infinitum a tie that, with the passing of generations, becomes fictitious. This Court has affirmed that "[t]he requirement of restoring criteria of equity and reasonableness and of removing the disparities and incongruences, inherent in a favorable treatment, is to be considered preponderant with respect to the protection of expectation” (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 is to be noted that the retroactivity of the regulatory change could not be considered "absolutely unpredictable” (Judgment no. 70 of 2024), on the basis of two different considerations. The non-unpredictability derives, in the first place, from what was just said on the regime of particular favor provided by the derogated 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 iure sanguinis (v. point 8.1.). In the second place, from Italy had already arrived some signals in the sense of the limitation of transmission by filiation and of appeals aimed at ascertaining citizenship: on 9 October 2024, the first bills directed at introducing limits to citizenship by filiation had been presented (A.S. 1263 and A.C. 2080), and in December 2024 a burdensome unified contribution had been introduced, for appeals in citizenship matters, calculated per head rather than per case, as occurred until that moment (Article 1(814) of Law no. 207 of 30 December 2024, bearing "State budget forecast for the financial year 2025 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2025-2027”).

Nor can it be deemed that the introduction of limits was predictable, but not their retroactivity. For what has already been said, in the Italian case, a remedy turned only to the future would have left intact the problem that one intended to solve.

9.2.3.– Finally, in evaluating the reasonableness of the balancing operated by retroactive law, it is necessary to take into account the "compensatory” measures contained in Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted).

As mentioned (point 8.3.), the decree modifies other provisions, with the purpose of facilitating entry into Italy and the attainment of Italian citizenship by foreigners of Italian origin.

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 also in favor of the foreigner who has a parent or grandparent who is currently an Italian citizen by birth. Furthermore, the new paragraph 1-bis regulates in the following terms the acquisition of Italian citizenship by the foreign or stateless minor who has a parent citizen by birth: "[t]he foreign or stateless minor, of whom the father or mother are citizens by birth, becomes a citizen if the parents or the guardian declare the will of the acquisition of citizenship and one of the following requirements is met: a) following the declaration, the minor resides legally for at least two continuous years in Italy; b) the declaration is submitted within three years from the birth of the minor or from the subsequent date in which the filiation is established, also adoptive, from an Italian citizen” (the term of which at letter b was brought from one to three years by Article 1(513)(a) of Law no. 199 of 30 December 2025, bearing "State budget forecast for the financial year 2026 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2026-2028”). Article 1(1-ter) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) extends this latter possibility to parents (who have requested the ascertainment 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 of whom at Article 3-bis(1)(a), (a-bis) and (b), of Law no. 91 of 5 February 1992, the declaration provided by Article 4(1-bis)(b), of the same law can be submitted by 11:59 PM, Rome time, of 31 May 2029” (this last term was moved from 31 May 2026 to 31 May 2029 by Article 1(19-ter) of Law Decree no. 200 of 31 December 2025, bearing "Urgent provisions on regulatory terms,” converted, with amendments, into Law no. 26 of 27 February 2026).

Again, Article 1-bis of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted) dictates "[p]rovisions to favor the recovery of Italian roots of those of Italian descent and the consequent acquisition of Italian citizenship,” facilitating entry into Italy for subordinate work to the foreigner of Italian descent, without generational limits, and his or her naturalization. Based on Article 27(1-octies) (introduced ex novo) of Legislative Decree no. 286 of 25 July 1998 (Consolidated text of provisions concerning the discipline of immigration and norms on the condition of the foreigner), "[e]ntry and residence for subordinate work are permitted, outside the quotas of which at Article 3(4), with the procedures of which at Article 22, to the foreigner residing abroad, descendant of an Italian citizen and in possession of the citizenship of a State of destination of significant flows of Italian emigration, identified with a decree of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in concert with the Ministers of the Interior and of Labor and Social Policies.” Such norm was implemented with Interministerial Decree of 17 November 2025 (Identification of States of destination of significant flows of Italian emigration to whose citizens, if descendants of Italian citizen, is permitted entry and residence in Italy for subordinate work outside the quotas of which at Article 3(4) of Legislative Decree no. 286 of 25 July 1998). Finally, Article 1-bis(2) of the decree under examination reduced from three to two years the period of residence necessary for the naturalization of the foreigner of Italian descent (see the new text of Article 9(1)(a) of Law no. 91 of 1992).

9.2.4.– Overall, from the considerations exposed in points 9.2.1., 9.2.2., and 9.2.3. it follows that the challenged norms have balanced in a non-unreasonable manner the expectation of the addressees and the constitutional principle of effectiveness of citizenship.

Article 3-bis introduced ex tunc new conditions for the acquisition of citizenship by filiation by foreigners born abroad, requiring a sufficient nexus with Italy but simultaneously protecting the expectation of those who had already obtained the recognition of status or had filed the application (or at least received the appointment). The legislature intervened to deal with a divergence of the legislation from the constitutional context, which had progressively worsened for the legal and social reasons already exposed (points 8.1. and 8.2.). In the matter of citizenship, the legislature enjoys broad discretion, which this Court has recognized by declaring in part inadmissible the questions raised on the absence of limits in the transmission of citizenship by filiation (Judgment no. 142 of 2025). While aware of the value that Italian descent holds for the communities of those of Italian descent and of the importance that those same communities have, under the cultural and economic profile, for Italy – which in the decree under examination translated into the provisions of favor recalled in point 9.2.3. –, this Court deems, therefore, not well-founded the question raised for harm to acquired rights.

10.– The referring court laments then the violation of Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 9 of the TEU and Article 20 of the TFEU, which attribute citizenship of the Union to anyone who has the citizenship of a Member State.

Neither is this question well-founded.

In point 8.2.5., the meaning of the nexus between citizenship of the Member State and European citizenship was already illustrated and it was underlined that, according to the Court of Justice, citizenship conferred by States must be based on a real relationship between State and citizen (see the cited Commission Judgment). The decision on the Maltese case of 2025 represents a coherent development of previous judgments, which considered justified – even if reviewable under the profile of proportionality – national norms that provided for the loss of citizenship, in that they were directed to "protect 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 bond of citizenship” (Grand Chamber, Judgment 2 March 2010, Case C-135/08, Rottmann, point 51; in the same sense the cited Stadt Duisburg judgments, point 37, and Tjebbes, point 31; Grand Chamber, Judgment 18 January 2022, Case C-118/20, Wiener Landesregierung, point 52), and to guarantee the permanence of an effective tie with the Member State: "it is legitimate for a Member State to consider that citizenship is the expression of an effective tie between itself and its citizens and to link, consequently, to the absence or cessation of such an effective tie the loss of its citizenship” (thus, again, the cited Tjebbes judgment, point 35). However, "taking into account the importance that primary Union law attributes to the status of citizen of the Union which, as recalled in point 29 of the present judgment, constitutes the fundamental status of citizens of the Member States, it is for the competent national authorities and national judges to verify if the loss of the citizenship of the Member State concerned, if it entails the loss of the status of citizen of the Union and the rights deriving from it, respects the principle of proportionality for what regards its consequences on the situation of the interested party and, if necessary, on that of his or her family members, under the profile of Union law” (see the cited judgment of the Court of Justice Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, point 38).

The referring court recalls such case law and censures Article 3-bis for not having "provided for any mechanism of intertemporal law that would allow [...] the conservation of citizenship within reasonable terms (for example, by providing a ‘time window’ within which to be able to submit an administrative or judicial application for recognition of citizenship).”

The question is not well-founded due to the irrelevance of the case law recalled with respect to the challenged norms. The rulings of the Court of Justice cited above concern, all, cases in which a Member State has deprived a subject of a status (of national citizen and, therefore, European) ascertained, impinging therefore on rights concretely exercisable by the same subject. According to the Court of Justice, norms depriving of citizenship fall under the scope of application of Union law when they entail the loss of an recognized status and the correlated rights (Judgments Rottmann, point 49; Stadt Duisburg, point 36; Tjebbes, point 32; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, point 30; Wiener Landesregierung, points 39-41 and 48; see also Grand Chamber, Judgment 8 March 2011, Case C-34/09, Gerardo Ruiz Zambrano, point 42: "Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures which have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the real and effective enjoyment of the rights conferred by their status as citizens of the Union”). The Court of Justice underlines that the consequences produced by norms depriving of citizenship "cannot be hypothetical or eventual”: Judgment Tjebbes, point 40 (in the same sense judgments Stadt Duisburg, point 50; Udlændinge-og Integrationsministeriet, point 54; Wiener Landesregierung, point 59).

Precisely because national norms impinge in concrete terms on rights correlated to European citizenship, an individual examination of the consequences produced on the life of the interested parties is necessary, according to the Court of Justice, in implementation of the principle of proportionality. Such examination would not even be imaginable if the status of European citizen is not ascertained and, therefore, no right is concretely exercisable by the subjects interested. The ratio of European case law is to preside over European citizenship understood as the fundamental status of citizens of Member States: such ratio comes to failure in the instant case, because for none of the addressees of the challenged Article 3-bis was the status of European citizen legally certain.

Ultimately, the rulings of the Court of Justice recalled by the referring court are not pertinent because the challenged norms, as specified in point 8.3., do not order a loss of Italian citizenship.

Being clear that the case law of the Court of Justice delimits the obligation of individual examination (of the consequences produced by norms depriving of citizenship) to cases in which the subject loses a recognized status and the relative concretely exercisable rights, the request, advanced by the parties, to operate a preliminary reference on the compatibility between the challenged Article 3-bis and Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU is to be rejected. Indeed, when doubts exist on the content of Union law, which comes into relief in a judgment of constitutional legitimacy, this Court proposes a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice. In the instant case, however, the rulings of the latter relative to Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU render evident, for the reasons exposed above, that the prerequisites that, according to the case law of the same Court, exempt from the duty to operate the preliminary reference occur (Court of Justice, Grand Chamber, Judgments 24 March 2026, Remling, Case C-767/23, and 6 October 2021, Consorzio Italian Management e Catania Multiservizi, Case C-561/19; Judgment 6 October 1982, Cilfit and others, Case C-283/81).

11.– According to the referring court, Article 3-bis would violate Article 117(1) of the Constitution also in relation to Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to which "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

The question is inadmissible.

Such Declaration is not a binding international act, in that it is incorporated in resolution 217A of the UN General Assembly. Therefore, Article 15(2) of the Declaration, as a non-binding provision, is unfit to integrate the parameter of Article 117(1) of the Constitution, which makes reference to "obligations deriving [...] from international obligations.” From this follows the inadmissibility of the question for insufficient reasoning on non-manifest groundlessness, in that the referring court does not explain why from the Declaration an international obligation would derive, fit to "activate” Article 117(1) of the Constitution (Judgments no. 185, no. 95 and no. 142 of 2025, no. 194 of 2018).

It remains unaffected the question if Article 15(2) of the Declaration expresses a customary norm, given that the referring court specifically recalls Article 117(1) of the Constitution (not Article 10(1) of the Constitution) and "international treaty law” and, in the point relating to Article 15 of the Declaration, never invokes an international custom with corresponding content.

12.– Finally, the referring court laments the violation of Article 117(1) of the Constitution in relation to Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 ECHR, according to which "[n]o one can be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national.”

Also such question is inadmissible.

The ECHR does not guarantee a right to citizenship, regulating only, at Article 3 of Protocol no. 4, the "[p]rohibition of expulsion of nationals” in these terms: "1. No one shall be expelled, by means of either an individual or a collective measure, from the territory of the State of which he is a national. 2. No one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national.” Therefore, Article 3 guarantees the right to remain or enter the territory of the State of which one is a citizen, not that of having or conserving citizenship. The explanatory report that accompanies Protocol no. 4 indicates that the Committee of Experts (responsible for the elaboration of the text of the Protocol) proposed to insert a provision according to which a State would have been prohibited from depriving a citizen of its own nationality for the purpose of expelling him. 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” (point 23). Therefore, Article 3 of Protocol no. 4 deliberately avoids regulating measures depriving of citizenship, prohibiting only those that harm the right of abode of he who is a citizen.

From the case law of the ECtHR it results that: a) a right to acquire or conserve a certain citizenship is not guaranteed by the ECHR (for example, Judgment 21 May 2013, Fehrer and Dolnik v. Slovakia, point 41); b) an "arbitrary denial” of citizenship could harm the right to private life of which at Article 8 ECHR, but the arbitrariness of the deprivation must be ascertained based on the internal law of the State (again, Fehrer and Dolnik judgment, point 41; see also Judgments 22 December 2020, Usmanov v. Russia, points 53-54, and 17 September 2024, Abo v. Estonia, points 63-64); c) the right to enter the territory of a State, guaranteed by the cited Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4, belongs only to the citizens of that State (Grand Chamber, Judgment 14 September 2022, H.F. and others v. France, points 205 and 245).

From an obiter of the cited H.F. judgment it results that the deprivation of citizenship inflicted for the purpose of impeding the entry of the citizen into the territory could be "problematic” in relation to Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 (point 249). The European Court makes reference, in any case, to an act concerning persons who, before the harmful act, had the right of entry in as much as recognized as citizens, not to an act (like the decree under examination) concerning persons who did not have an effective right of entry into Italian territory in that their citizenship had not been ascertained.

The referring court does not confront any of the profiles exposed above, not arguing, therefore, the pertinence of Article 3(2) with respect to the challenged norms. From this derives the inadmissibility of the question for insufficient reasoning on non-manifest groundlessness.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

1) declares inadmissible the interventions in the proceedings of L.A. T. et al., L.A. F., R. D.C.R.R. et al., and L.P. C.G.;

2) declares inadmissible the interventions in the proceedings of the Association of Jurists Iure Sanguinis (AGIS), the Confederation of Italians in the World, and the Italian Association "Sardi Uniti” of Socorros Mutuos;

3) declares inadmissible the question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 5 February 1992 (New rules on citizenship), introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 28 March 2025 (Urgent provisions regarding 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 to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) –, in reference to Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, with the order indicated in the epigraph;

4) declares inadmissible the question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), raised – limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article” and to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) –, in reference to Article 117(1) of the Constitution, in relation to Article 3(2) of Protocol no. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Strasbourg on 16 September 1963, rendered enforceable by Decree of the President of the Republic no. 217 of 14 April 1982, by the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, with the order indicated in the epigraph;

5) declares not well-founded the question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), raised – limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article” and to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) –, in reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, by the Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, with the order indicated in the epigraph;

6) declares not well-founded the question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 3-bis of Law no. 91 of 1992, introduced by Article 1(1) of Law Decree no. 36 of 2025 (as converted), raised – limited to the words "even before the date of entry into force of this article” and to the conditions provided for in letters a), a-bis), and b) –, in reference to Article 117(1) 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 Court of Ordinary Jurisdiction of Turin, specialized section on immigration, international protection, and free movement of EU citizens, sitting as a single judge, with the order indicated in the epigraph.

Thus decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on 11 March 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Director of the Chancellery

Deposited in the Chancellery on 30 April 2026

 

Attachment:

Order read at the hearing of 11 March 2026