The faint hopes of millions of descendants of Italian emigrants around the world who believed they might still claim Italian citizenship by descent now appear to have been extinguished.
On 12 March 2026, the Italian Constitutional Court issued a press release announcing its decision on the constitutional challenge brought against the citizenship reform introduced by Decree-Law no. 36 of 2025 and confirmed by Law no. 74 of 2025.
The case had been referred by the Tribunale di Torino, which raised doubts about the constitutionality of the new rules restricting Italian citizenship by descent.
In its referral order, the Turin court argued that the reform might operate retroactively by treating individuals who would previously have been recognised as Italian citizens by birth as if they had never acquired citizenship.
The Constitutional Court rejected the challenge.
According to the press release, the Court declared unfounded the objections based on the alleged arbitrariness of the distinction between those who applied before 27 March 2025 and those who did so afterwards, as well as the claim that the reform amounted to an implicit revocation of citizenship rights.
The Court also rejected the argument that the reform unlawfully affects European Union citizenship.
Other questions, including those based on international human rights instruments, were declared inadmissible.
The full judgment has not yet been published and will be deposited in the coming days.
Only then will the Court’s reasoning clarify the true constitutional reach of Italy’s new restrictive framework on citizenship by descent.
The Constitutional Court’s First Judicial Response to the 2025 Citizenship Reform
The Italian Constitutional Court (Corte costituzionale) has now delivered its first response to the most closely watched constitutional challenge arising from the 2025 reform of Italian citizenship law.
The case concerned the new restrictive framework governing citizenship by descent introduced through Decree-Law no. 36 of 28 March 2025, adopted on grounds of necessity and urgency, and subsequently converted by Parliament into Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025. The reform inserted Article 3-bis into Law no. 91 of 1992 and significantly reshaped the legal regime governing the recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis.
The constitutional challenge originated from an order of referral issued by the Tribunal of Turin, which raised serious doubts regarding the compatibility of the new provision with fundamental constitutional principles. At the heart of the case lay a simple but far-reaching question: could the legislature alter the citizenship regime so profoundly that individuals who, under the previous legal framework, would have been recognised as Italian citizens by descent must now be treated as though they had never acquired citizenship at all?
The Turin court (Tribunale di Torino) framed the problem in particularly strong terms. According to its reasoning, the new legislative framework risked producing what it described as a retroactive and implicit revocation of citizenship, affecting individuals who had already acquired Italian citizenship by operation of law at birth under the previous regime.
On 12 March 2026, following the public hearing held the day before, the Constitutional Court issued a press release announcing the outcome of the case. The Court rejected the constitutional questions raised by the Tribunal of Turin, declaring some arguments unfounded and others inadmissible. The full judgment has not yet been deposited.
Although the reasoning of the decision is not yet available, the press release already conveys a clear institutional message. At least at this preliminary stage, the Court has effectively confirmed the validity of the restrictive framework introduced by the 2025 reform. In this sense, the decision represents the first constitutional consolidation of the new citizenship regime. The Court has not, for the moment, called into question the legislative architecture created by the emergency decree of March 2025 and its subsequent parliamentary conversion.
Nevertheless, the reasons will matter as much as the result. Once the judgment is published, it will clarify how far the legislature may go in redefining the boundaries of citizenship by descent and whether any constitutional space remains for future challenges. The significance of this ruling becomes even clearer when placed in the broader constitutional trajectory that preceded it. The Turin referral, in fact, followed an earlier decision of the Constitutional Court addressing a radically different set of constitutional concerns.
The next section examines that earlier decision and shows how the Court has now been confronted with two almost symmetrical constitutional tensions arising from opposite critiques of the same legal system.
Opposite Constitutional Challenges, a Consistent Judicial Posture
The constitutional trajectory of Italian citizenship by descent has recently been shaped by two almost mirror-image challenges, raised at different moments and directed at opposite aspects of the same legal framework. Remarkably, despite the radically different criticisms advanced by the referring courts, the response of the Italian Constitutional Court appears broadly consistent. In both instances, the Court has displayed a clear posture of institutional restraint, signalling a reluctance to interfere with policy choices made by the political branches.
This approach already emerged in Judgment no. 142 of 31 July 2025, delivered in response to several referral orders issued by the tribunals of Bologna, Rome, Milan and Florence. Those courts questioned the constitutionality of Article 1 of Law no. 91 of 1992 insofar as it allows the transmission and recognition of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis without any generational limit.
According to the referring judges, the Italian system of citizenship by descent might have been excessively expansive. In particular, they argued that the current legal framework (at the time of the challenge) allowed individuals born abroad, sometimes many generations removed from the Italian ancestor, to obtain recognition of citizenship despite having no genuine social, territorial or cultural connection with the Italian State. Such a system, the courts suggested, could potentially conflict with several constitutional principles, including the principle of equality and reasonableness under Article 3 of the Constitution, the principle of popular sovereignty under Article 1, and the broader constitutional idea that citizenship presupposes an effective bond between the individual and the national community.
As a matter of fact, the criticism was that the Italian citizenship regime might extend membership in the political community too broadly.
The Constitutional Court rejected that line of argument. In Judgment no. 142/2025 it declared the constitutional questions partly inadmissible and partly unfounded. The central reasoning of the Court was straightforward but institutionally significant. The Court held that defining the conditions for belonging to the national community falls primarily within the discretion of the legislature, which enjoys a wide margin of political choice in determining the criteria governing citizenship. Introducing generational limits to citizenship by descent, the Court observed, would require selecting among several possible legislative solutions. Such policy choices cannot be imposed through constitutional adjudication. They belong instead to Parliament.
The Court therefore concluded that the absence of generational limits in the transmission of citizenship iure sanguinis is not, in itself, contrary to the Constitution. At the same time, it left open the possibility for the legislature to intervene should it consider reform appropriate.
And in fact, legislative intervention had already occurred.
Shortly before that judgment was delivered, the Government adopted Decree-Law no. 36 of 28 March 2025, introduced on grounds of necessity and urgency. The decree entered into force on 29 March 2025 and was subsequently converted, with amendments, into Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025, which entered into force on 24 May 2025. The reform inserted Article 3-bis into Law no. 91 of 1992 and significantly restructured the legal framework governing citizenship by descent.
It is precisely at this stage that the constitutional debate took an unexpected turn.
A new challenge was raised by the Tribunal of Turin, but this time the criticism moved in the opposite direction. The Turin court did not argue that the system of citizenship by descent was too expansive. Instead, it questioned whether the new restrictive framework introduced in 2025 might itself violate constitutional principles. The Turin referral therefore addressed a fundamentally different concern: whether the legislative reform might operate retroactively and unreasonably, affecting individuals who, under the previous legal regime, had already acquired Italian citizenship by operation of law.
This is what makes the constitutional sequence particularly striking. The earlier referrals criticised the citizenship regime for being too open; the Turin order criticised the new legislation for potentially being too restrictive. The two constitutional challenges thus point in opposite directions.
The first asked whether Italian citizenship law extended membership in the national community too broadly. The second asked whether the new legislative restrictions risked compressing a previously recognised legal status.
The most sophisticated element of the Turin order lies in its formulation of what the court described as an “implicit revocation of citizenship.”
Under the traditional interpretation of Italian citizenship iure sanguinis, citizenship is not granted by the State as a discretionary benefit. Rather, it arises automatically at birth when the legal conditions are satisfied. The subsequent administrative or judicial procedure merely recognises that status. For this reason, Italian jurisprudence typically describes citizenship recognition proceedings as declaratory in nature: the authority does not create citizenship, but acknowledges a status that already exists.
The reasoning of the Tribunal of Turin begins precisely from this premise.
If, under the law previously in force, a person born abroad had already acquired Italian citizenship by descent at birth, then a legislative provision declaring that such individuals must be treated as though they had never acquired citizenship does not simply regulate future acquisitions. Instead, it retroactively negates an already existing legal status.
In practical terms, the law effectively states: you were never a citizen.
From the perspective of the Turin court, however, if citizenship had already arisen under the previous legal framework, the real effect of the new provision is different. It is not merely a rule governing acquisition of citizenship. Rather, it functions as a retroactive deprivation of citizenship, even though the statute does not explicitly describe it in those terms.
This is why the court spoke of an implicit revocation of citizenship. The constitutional implications of such a mechanism are profound. Italian constitutional principles strongly resist arbitrary deprivation of citizenship, and the Turin court therefore raised doubts under several constitutional provisions, including Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution as well as Article 117, which incorporates obligations deriving from European and international law.
The constitutional question posed by the Tribunal of Turin can therefore be summarised in stark terms: if a person had already acquired Italian citizenship by birth according to the law in force at that time, can the legislature subsequently intervene and declare that such citizenship never existed?
Or would such retroactive legislation violate fundamental constitutional guarantees?
For this reason many commentators have observed that the Turin question is, in some respects, even more radical than the earlier constitutional challenge. The earlier debate asked whether the Italian citizenship system was too generous. The Turin challenge asks whether the State can retroactively erase a citizenship that had already arisen by operation of law.
These two opposing tensions illustrate the extraordinary complexity of the current constitutional debate surrounding Italian citizenship by descent.
Yet despite the diametrically opposed criticisms raised by different courts, the response of the Constitutional Court appears remarkably consistent. In both situations, the Court has emphasised the central role of the political branches in shaping citizenship policy. Whether confronted with claims that citizenship by descent was too expansive or with claims that the 2025 reform was too restrictive, the Court has shown reluctance to substitute its own judgment for that of the legislature.
The press release issued by the Constitutional Court on 12 March 2026, announcing the rejection of the constitutional questions raised by the Tribunal of Turin, seems to confirm this institutional philosophy. The Court declared the questions partly unfounded and partly inadmissible, signalling that it does not intend to dismantle the legislative architecture introduced through the emergency decree of March 2025 and its parliamentary conversion in May 2025.
In this sense, the Court’s approach reflects a coherent constitutional posture: the definition of citizenship rules is treated primarily as a matter of democratic policy, to be determined by Government and Parliament rather than by judicial intervention.
The full reasoning of the judgment, once published, will nevertheless be crucial. It will clarify whether the Court has merely deferred to the political branches in general terms or whether it has identified more precise constitutional boundaries within which future reforms must remain.
The Legal Architecture of the 2025 Citizenship Reform
The controversy surrounding the 2025 reform cannot be understood without examining the legal structure introduced by Decree-Law no. 36 of 28 March 2025, later converted, with amendments, into Law no. 74 of 23 May 2025. The reform inserted Article 3-bis into Law no. 91 of 1992, marking a fundamental shift in the legal treatment of citizenship by descent.
The new provision operates through a radical legislative technique. Rather than simply restricting future claims, Article 3-bis establishes a legal fiction: individuals born abroad who possess another nationality are deemed never to have acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of a limited set of statutory exceptions applies.
The wording of the provision is particularly significant. It expressly extends to persons born abroad before the entry into force of the reform, thereby projecting the new rule backwards in time. At the same time, the legislation introduces a decisive procedural threshold: recognition requests are preserved only if they were filed before 23:59 (Rome time) on 27 March 2025, the evening preceding the publication of the decree-law.
In practical terms, the reform transformed the legal landscape overnight. Individuals who had already begun administrative or judicial proceedings before that moment remain within the previous regime. Those who had not yet filed a claim fall under the new rule and may no longer assert citizenship by descent unless they fall within specific exceptions.
The statutory exceptions introduced by the reform are narrowly defined. As ultimately approved by Parliament, the law preserves citizenship recognition only where at least one of several conditions is met: the filing of an administrative or judicial application before the cut-off date; the existence of a consular appointment already scheduled before that date; the presence of an ascendant within the first or second degree who possessed exclusively Italian citizenship; or the existence of a parent who resided in Italy for a continuous period of at least two years after acquiring Italian citizenship and before the applicant’s birth or adoption.
This legislative design reflects a clear policy objective. The reform seeks to limit what the Government described as an excessively expansive interpretation of ius sanguinis, which had allowed recognition claims to be brought by descendants many generations removed from the original Italian ancestor.
The legislative record accompanying the decree-law emphasised several concerns. Authorities pointed to the rapid growth of potential citizenship claims abroad, the administrative pressure placed on consulates and municipalities, and the risk that the Italian citizenry could expand in ways disconnected from any effective social link with the Republic. The Government also invoked urgency, arguing that a sudden surge in applications was likely once reform proposals became public.
Yet the structure of Article 3-bis inevitably raised difficult constitutional questions. By declaring that certain individuals must be treated as though they had never acquired citizenship, the provision goes beyond merely regulating future acquisitions. Its language potentially affects individuals who, under the previous legal regime, may have already acquired citizenship by operation of law at birth.
This tension lies at the centre of the constitutional challenge raised by the Tribunale di Torino. In the underlying proceedings the applicants sought recognition of Italian citizenship by descent. Under the legal framework that existed before the 2025 reform, the claim would likely have succeeded on the basis of established jurisprudence governing iure sanguinis transmission.
However, once Article 3-bis entered into force, the applicants’ claim fell outside the preserved categories provided by the statute. Faced with this situation, the Turin court was required to address a preliminary interpretative question: does the new provision merely regulate the conditions under which citizenship may be recognised, or does it retroactively affect a citizenship status that may already exist?
The referring judge adopted the second interpretation. Starting from the traditional understanding that citizenship iure sanguinis is acquired automatically at birth, the court reasoned that recognition proceedings are declaratory rather than constitutive. Administrative or judicial authorities do not grant citizenship; they confirm a status that arises directly from the law.
On this basis, the Turin order characterised Article 3-bis as producing what it described as a retroactive and implicit revocation of citizenship. If citizenship already existed under the previous legal framework, then a rule declaring that such individuals must be treated as though they had never acquired citizenship effectively removes that status ex post.
The constitutional significance of this reasoning is considerable. The referral framed the issue primarily under Articles 2 and 3 of the Italian Constitution, invoking the protection of fundamental personal status, the principle of equality and reasonableness, and the doctrine of legitimate expectations within the broader concept of legal certainty.
The court also invoked Article 117(1) of the Constitution, which binds Italian legislation to obligations arising from European Union law and international law. In this context the referral raised concerns relating to the loss of European Union citizenship and cited principles developed in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning proportionality in nationality decisions.
In addition, the referral invoked international norms, including Article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 3(2) of Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibit arbitrary deprivation of nationality and recognise the right of individuals to enter the territory of the state of which they are citizens.
The public hearing before the Italian Constitutional Court took place on 11 March 2026. The following day, the Court issued a press release announcing that the constitutional questions raised by the Turin tribunal had been rejected. The Court declared the objections based on equality and arbitrariness unfounded, rejected the arguments concerning European Union citizenship, and declared inadmissible the claims grounded in international human rights instruments.
At the time of the press release, however, the full judgment had not yet been deposited. Consequently, the publicly available record currently consists of the Turin referral order, the hearing record and role sheet of the Constitutional Court, and the press release summarising the outcome.
The publication of the full decision will therefore be essential in determining how the Court ultimately characterises Article 3-bis: whether as a rule governing the acquisition of citizenship, as a legislative preclusion affecting recognition procedures, or as a measure capable of influencing the very existence of citizenship status itself.
A deeply divided debate
More broadly, the reform has revealed a profound division within the legal and political debate on Italian citizenship.
Supporters of the reform argue that the traditional ius sanguinis regime had become detached from any real connection to Italy and required legislative correction. Critics, by contrast, maintain that the new rules risk undermining a historically inclusive system that recognised the enduring bond between Italy and its global diaspora.
Many practising lawyers specialising in citizenship law have reacted to the 2025 reform with a mixture of caution and constitutional concern. In professional commentary and legal analysis, the reform has often been described as raising serious questions about the nature of citizenship itself and about the limits of legislative power in redefining an already existing legal status. The central issue identified by many practitioners concerns the potential retroactive effects of the new framework. By declaring that certain categories of individuals born abroad must be treated as though they had never acquired Italian citizenship, Article 3-bis appears to reach back in time and affect persons who, under the previous interpretation of the law, were widely regarded as citizens by operation of law from birth. From this perspective, several commentators have suggested that the reform risks blurring the boundary between regulating future acquisitions of citizenship and effectively depriving individuals of a status that may already exist.
This concern has been closely linked to broader constitutional principles. Lawyers analysing the reform frequently point to the principle of equality and reasonableness under Article 3 of the Italian Constitution, particularly in relation to the rigid temporal distinction introduced by the legislative cut-off date of 27 March 2025. Critics argue that individuals who are otherwise in identical legal situations may now be treated differently solely on the basis of whether their recognition request was filed before or after that moment. Others have emphasised the possible tension with the principle of legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations, especially for those who had begun collecting documentation or preparing applications under the previous regime.
A further dimension of the debate concerns the implications of the reform for European Union citizenship. Because Italian nationality automatically entails EU citizenship, some practitioners have argued that any legislative measure capable of removing or denying Italian citizenship must also be assessed in light of the proportionality principles developed in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Although these arguments remain contested, they illustrate the extent to which the reform has triggered a broader constitutional conversation extending beyond the national legal order.
Taken together, these critiques reveal a common concern among practitioners: the fear that the reform does not simply tighten access to citizenship for the future but may alter, retroactively, the legal status of individuals whose connection to Italian citizenship had long been recognised by courts and administrative practice. Whether these constitutional doubts will retain any practical relevance after the Constitutional Court’s recent intervention remains to be seen, but they continue to frame much of the ongoing legal debate surrounding the future of citizenship by descent in Italy.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn and has been expanded with additional legal context and references for MMWEuropetranslations readers.
