The Court of Cassation Defies Italy’s New Citizenship Restrictions

The First Civil Section of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has reaffirmed that Italian citizenship by descent is not a precarious status granted by the state, but an absolute subjective right that exists from the moment of birth.

Decision No. 13818/2026, filed on May 12, 2026, arrives at a remarkable moment. It stands in direct tension with the recent narrative suggested by the Italian Constitutional Court in Sentence No. 63/2026 and the restrictive framework introduced by Law No. 74/2025. The Constitutional Court treated the new Article 3-bis of Law No. 91/1992 as creating an original preclusion to acquisition for certain people born abroad, rather than as a formal revocation of a status already officially recognized.

This is not simply a disagreement over procedure. It reflects a deeper divide in the way Italy’s highest courts understand the nature of citizenship, the role of the state, and the limits of administrative convenience when individual rights are at stake.

Why the court speaking matters

Part of the significance of Decision No. 13818/2026 lies in the court that issued it.

The Italian Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation are not interchangeable institutions. They sit at different points in the legal system, are composed differently, and often approach rights from different angles.

The Constitutional Court is composed of fifteen judges: five appointed by the President of the Republic, five elected by Parliament in joint session, and five elected by the supreme ordinary and administrative magistratures. Its structure is deliberately mixed, bringing together legal expertise, institutional sensibilities, and constitutional balance. The Constitutional Court itself describes this appointment system as one designed to harmonize independence, technical competence, and different institutional cultures, including those connected to the political institutions of the Republic.

That is why the Constitutional Court often speaks in the language of balance: individual rights, legislative discretion, public interest, administrative sustainability, and the state’s broader constitutional choices. In citizenship matters, that can mean searching for a way to make new legislation fit within the constitutional order, even when doing so requires treating a birthright as more precarious than Italian civil law has traditionally allowed.

The Court of Cassation comes from another tradition. Its civil judges are career jurists, formed over decades in the application of ordinary law. For them, long-standing rights rooted in the Civil Code and general principles of law must be protected with coherence. The law is not merely a tool for the government to manage administrative strain. It is also a shield for the individual.

The panel in Decision No. 13818/2026 was the First Civil Section of the Supreme Court of Cassation, composed of President Maria Acierno, Laura Tricomi, Rita Elvira Anna Russo, Eleonora Reggiani as reporting justice, and Martina Flamini. The case was listed under “diritto di cittadinanza — interesse ad agire,” and the decision was published on May 12, 2026.

That composition is not a side note. It is central to the legal meaning of the decision.

This was not a broad political statement from a court asked to preserve the legislature’s room to maneuver. It was a civil-law ruling from the section of the Cassation responsible for determining whether people claiming Italian citizenship status have access to judicial protection when the administrative route has failed them.

To a Cassation judge, a queue at the consulate is a logistical failure of the state, not a sufficient reason to strip a citizen of rights that may have existed since birth.

That is the force of Decision No. 13818/2026.

Citizenship as an existing right, not a discretionary benefit

The Court reaffirmed that Italian citizenship by descent is not created by the administration at the moment of recognition. Where the legal chain is proven, citizenship exists from birth. The administrative or judicial process does not grant the right; it recognizes a pre-existing status.

This is why the Court describes citizenship as an absolute subjective right, permanent and imprescriptible in character. In the decision, the Court states that the right of citizenship is an absolute subjective right of high constitutional rank, which arises together with the holder and has permanent, as well as imprescriptible, character.

That language carries real weight in the current legal environment. The 2025 reform attempts to narrow recognition for many descendants born abroad, and the Constitutional Court has so far allowed that restrictive framework to survive constitutional review. But Cassation’s civil-law reasoning insists that citizenship by descent cannot be reduced to an administrative favor or a matter of political convenience.

When a person claims citizenship by birth, the question is not whether the state feels inclined to grant it. The question is whether the legal status already exists and whether the courts must intervene to remove uncertainty around that status.

The interest to sue and administrative obstacles

One of the most frustrating hurdles for descendants has been the inability to apply at all.

For years, many applicants have faced consular systems that did not provide meaningful access to appointments. They were told that the administrative route existed, while in practice they could not reach it. Then, after the 2025 law change, the same applicants risk being treated as though they failed to act in time.

The Court of Cassation addressed this upstream prejudice with striking clarity.

The existence of obstacles to the presentation of the application, when those obstacles are created by the administration itself, cannot be brushed aside. It may be legally equivalent to a failure or delay in recognition because it produces the same harm: uncertainty over the applicant’s status and the rights connected to that status.

The Court’s principle of law is direct: in actions to ascertain Italian citizenship status, the interest to sue exists not only in cases of denial or delay in recognition, but also when impediments, difficulties, or excessive delays prevent the applicant from presenting the request to the competent administration.

In other words, administrative impediments, difficulties, or excessive slowness may create the legal interest necessary to bring the matter before a court.

This directly undermines the narrative that descendants who did not apply before the 2025 reform were simply negligent. Many were not inactive. They were facing an adverse administrative environment that prevented them from accessing recognition of a right they claim to have possessed since birth.

A broken doorway cannot be used as proof that the person standing outside chose not to enter.

Why this ruling matters before the Sezioni Unite decision

This decision is not yet a ruling from the Sezioni Unite, whose forthcoming judgment remains central to the future of citizenship litigation.

But the timing and the panel are important.

By issuing this judgment now, these career judges are not quietly accepting the idea that administrative pressure or political urgency can justify the retroactive weakening of a civil status. They are reaffirming that the state’s own administrative failures cannot become the citizen’s legal burden.

The message is clear: there is no state security matter — real or portrayed — that automatically justifies treating a birthright as disposable.

The First Civil Section is prioritizing the absolute subjective right of high constitutional rank over the shifting winds of political convenience. It is also reaffirming that the courts remain available when the ordinary administrative path is blocked by the administration itself.

No one has a crystal ball for the final Sezioni Unite ruling. It would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise. But Decision No. 13818/2026 provides additional case-law support for those currently in litigation and for those whose cases depend on proving that they were blocked from the administrative path through no fault of their own.

What applicants should take from this

This ruling should not be read as a blanket guarantee.

It does not mean every citizenship case will succeed. It does not cure weak documentation. It does not make vague intention equivalent to legal action. The facts still count: the family line, the timing, the documents, the attempts to obtain an appointment, the communications with the administration, and the evidence showing that the applicant tried to proceed but was obstructed.

But for those who were actively trying to move forward and were blocked by the system itself, the decision gives lawyers important language and meaningful support.

It reaffirms that the Italian legal system, at least in its highest civil chamber, still recognizes the profound weight of citizenship by descent as an indelible part of personal legal identity.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said that Italian citizenship is a serious matter. This judgment suggests that rights stated in Italian civil legislation are also a serious matter — and that the Court of Cassation’s First Civil Section takes them seriously.

Administrative failure cannot simply be recast as personal inaction.

And a right that exists from birth should not disappear because the state failed to open the door.

 

If you tried to move forward with Italian citizenship and were blocked by the administrative process, your next step is not to guess from headlines. It is to review the line, the timing, and the evidence carefully.