New Circular by the Ministero dell’Interno regarding the ‘minor issue’ in Italian citizenship applications on the grounds of ius sanguinis.
On 3 October 2024, the Ministero dell’Interno issued new guidelines to the courts, the Italian Consulates and the Comune in relation to applications for Italian citizenship by descent (ius sanguinis) and the interpretation of Law no. 555/1912. These guidelines, published by way of Circulare no. 43347/2024, state that where the applicant’s last Italian born ancestor naturalised whilst the ancestor’s child (i.e. the applicant’s parent, grandparent, great-grandparent etc) was still a minor, the application should be refused.
The Italian citizenship law 555/1912 contained two key articles:
Article 12: This article stated that children automatically obtained the citizenship status of a parent e.g. if a father lost his Italian citizenship but naturalised as a citizen of another country, his minor children also lost their Italian citizenship.
Article 7: This article allowed Italian citizens born and residing abroad to maintain their Italian citizenship, even if they were citizens of another country by birthright.
Up until now Article 7 was applied more extensively to these applications.
The Italian Supreme Court (Corte Suprema di Cassazione) decision no. 17161/2023 and the more recent decision no. 454/2024 recommended the denial of applications where the Italian ancestor naturalised as a foreign citizen during the child’s minor age, regardless of the child’s place of birth.
Following the Ministero dell’Interno’s guidelines issued this month recommending that these applications are outright refused, applicants have been forced to carefully examine their family history noting when exactly their last Italian born ancestor naturalised. The guidelines are considered to be extremely restrictive and punitive for descendants of Italian citizens. It is questionable whether the administrative authorities even have the competence to recommend the way in which Italian law is interpreted, but only Parliament should have the right to change the law.
An additional issue that is unclear is whether a ‘minor’ is a child under 21 years old (as was the case before 1975) or 18 years old.
Please note that the Ministero dell’Interno guidelines only apply to future applications.
We have contacted our clients whose applications may be affected by these new guidelines and advised (where possible) of alternative routes for recognition of Italian citizenship. An alternative route is often via a female ancestor who lost her Italian citizenship involuntarily due to being married to a foreign national or when her Italian spouse naturalised as a citizen of another country.
For all new matters we will need to consider the facts of each matter on a case-by-case basis to identify if there are merits for applicants to apply for recognition of Italian citizenship on the grounds of ius sanguinis.
