Italy’s highest court ruled that children born Italian do not lose citizenship when a parent later naturalises abroad. The decision revives many ancestry claims and could reshape consular and court handling of pending cases.

Italy’s highest court has ruled that a child born with both Italian citizenship and citizenship of another country does not automatically lose Italian citizenship if a parent later becomes a citizen of another country. The decision is expected to strengthen citizenship claims by descendants of Italian emigrants around the world.

The ruling settles a long-running legal dispute known as the ‘Minor Issue’, which experts say has affected thousands of ancestry-based citizenship cases involving families that left Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The decision was dated Sunday and published on Wednesday by the Court of Cassation’s highest-level panel, which resolves conflicting legal interpretations.

At the centre of the dispute was whether children automatically lost Italian citizenship when an Italian parent later acquired a foreign nationality while the children were still minors. Under a restrictive interpretation adopted in a series of court decisions beginning in 2023, many applications by later generations were rejected because authorities considered the line of citizenship transmission to have been broken.

In its new ruling, the court said that under Italy’s historical citizenship laws, children who were already Italian citizens by birth under the principle of iure sanguinis, or citizenship by bloodline, did not automatically lose that citizenship when a parent became a citizen of another country. The court clarified that children born in countries that automatically grant citizenship at birth, including the United States, retained their Italian citizenship even if their parents later naturalised there. Because they remained Italian citizens, they could pass that citizenship on to later generations.

Lawyer Marco Mellone, who represented applicants in the case, said the ruling reversed a restrictive interpretation that had blocked citizenship claims in recent years, many of them by US citizens. “The Supreme Court of Cassation has completely changed its position and gone back, confirming that all these Italian-American families – and, more generally, families in all countries where this situation existed – regain the right to Italian citizenship by descent,” Mellone told The Associated Press.

The decision could have wide implications for descendants of Italian emigrants, especially in North and South America, where large Italian diaspora communities have ancestral ties to Italy. Mellone estimated that several hundred thousand families may have been affected by the restrictive interpretation adopted in recent years. Legal experts said the judgment was likely to strengthen the position of applicants whose claims were rejected only because of the Minor Issue and provide clear guidance to judges handling pending cases. The ruling could also influence how Italian administrative authorities and consulates assess future citizenship applications.

It is still unclear whether the Interior Ministry and Italian consulates will formally change their practices to reflect the court’s interpretation. However, decisions issued by the panel, known as the Sezioni Unite or United Sections, carry particular weight because they are meant to settle conflicting interpretations of the law. Mellone said that “there’s no one above” the panel, which has only very rarely reversed decisions.

The ruling comes at a time when Italy is facing rising demand for citizenship by descent and legal disputes over the scope of ancestry-based citizenship rights. Separately, a law backed by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani that restricts citizenship transmission through more distant generations has been referred to the European Union’s Court of Justice, with proceedings expected next year. In sum, the latest ruling restores a broader interpretation of citizenship by descent and is likely to shape pending and future claims.

With PTI Inputs