The Italian Court of Cassation, with a very recent judgment delivered in January 2024, has marked a turning point in the interpretation of the Law on Italian Iure Sanguinis Citizenship.
The ruling contradicts the main interpretation embraced for decades by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Consular and Municipal Offices.
More specifically, according to the Court of Cassation’s very recent ruling, if the Italian ancestor was naturalised in the foreign country during the minor age of the son or daughter before July 1992, Italian citizenship was lost not only by the father himself but also by the descendant if the latter already held the foreign citizenship or acquired it by reflection of the father’s naturalization.
The double loss of the father and his descendant’s citizenship resulted in the final interruption of the Italian lineage.
This ruling is likely to have a negative impact on thousands of applications for citizenship, regardless of whether they are submitted to the Consulate, to the Municipality, or judicially through the Civil Courts.
For more in-depth information and analysis, please refer to the full version of the legal paper published by Atty. Pietro Derossi, Head of the Global Mobility and Immigration Law Team at LEXIA.
Written by Pietro Derossi.
