OFFICIAL STATEMENT
Bersani Law Firm & Partners
*Updated May 4th 2026*
Italian Citizenship by Descent/Iure Sanguinis — Our Legal Position Following Recent 2026 Constitutional/Supreme Court Developments
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bersani Law Firm & Partners issues this statement to provide clarity to all current and prospective clients in light of recent media coverage concerning the Tajani Decree (Law 74/2025) and the Italian Constitutional Court.
We wish to be unequivocal: we are proceeding with all active cases. There is no legal basis for alarm at this stage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. Italian Citizenship Constitutional Court Process: It’s Not Over Yet
Bersani Law Firm & Partners issues this updated statement in light of Judgment No. 63/2026 of the Italian Constitutional Court, deposited on April 30, 2026. We wish to be unequivocal: we are proceeding with all active cases, with full confidence in the legal grounds available to our clients. The judgment, when read carefully, leaves intact — and in important respects strengthens — the core arguments on which our litigation strategy is built.
There is no legal basis for alarm. There is, on the contrary, every reason to move forward with renewed clarity.
Further hearings specifically targeting the Tajani Decree are scheduled for June 2026. No final, definitive rulings has been reached. We urge all clients and applicants to disregard unfounded media/social media reporting, which does not accurately reflect the legal situation at the current date (March 12th 2026). The proceedings remain open, and the outcome remains undetermined.
Italian Citizenship by Descent / Iure Sanguinis — Our Legal Position Following Constitutional Court Judgment No. 63/2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bersani Law Firm & Partners issues this updated statement in light of Judgment No. 63/2026 of the Italian Constitutional Court, deposited on April 30, 2026. We wish to be unequivocal: we are proceeding with all active cases, with full confidence in the legal grounds available to our clients. The judgment, when read carefully, leaves intact — and in important respects strengthens — the core arguments on which our litigation strategy is built.
There is no legal basis for alarm. There is, on the contrary, every reason to move forward with renewed clarity.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. What Judgment No. 63/2026 Actually Says — and What It Does Not Say
The Constitutional Court ruled on the questions raised by the Tribunal of Turin concerning Article 3-bis of Law No. 91/1992 (introduced by the so-called Tajani Decree, Law 74/2025). The Court declared the questions partly unfounded and partly inadmissible. It is essential, however, to read the decision in full rather than rely on headlines.
Three principles emerge from the judgment that directly support our continued litigation:
→ The declaratory nature of citizenship recognition is reaffirmed. The Court expressly endorsed the established jurisprudence of the Supreme Court (Cass. SS.UU. nn. 25317/2022 and 25318/2022): status civitatis based on filiation is permanent, imprescriptible, and justiciable at any time on the basis of proof of birth from an Italian citizen. Recognition is “meramente dichiarativo e non costitutivo” — merely declaratory, not constitutive. This is decisive: citizenship that already exists at birth cannot be retroactively erased by ordinary legislation.
→ The reform operates as an “original preclusion,” not as a deprivation. The Court clarified that Article 3-bis establishes a preclusion to acquisition for those born abroad with another nationality — but it does not affect the rights of those who had already obtained recognition or who had already submitted an application before the law entered into force. This is critical for the protection of pending cases and for clients whose right to apply was frustrated by Consular dysfunction.
→ The constitutional debate is not closed. The Mantova question remains pending before the Constitutional Court, with a hearing scheduled for June 2026. Lower courts continue to develop the jurisprudential record on retroactivity and on the protection of pre-existing rights. The Court of Cassation has further occasions to weigh in. Recent rulings of the Tribunals of Venice (March 12, 2026), Brescia (March 27, 2026), and Bologna (April 17, 2026) have continued to recognize citizenship in the post-Decree landscape, demonstrating that strong cases continue to prevail.
We urge clients and applicants to read the judgment in this context. The proceedings remain open on multiple fronts, and the legal arguments available to our clients remain robust.
2. CONSULATE “LACK OF APPOINTMENT” CASES — WE ARE PROCEEDING
The judgment has, if anything, strengthened the legal foundation of lack-of-appointment cases. The Court’s express reaffirmation that citizenship is acquired at birth and that recognition is merely declaratory means that an applicant who already held the right before March 28, 2025 cannot be retroactively divested of it by procedural rules they were prevented from invoking. The Court’s clarification that the new framework does not affect those who had already sought to file before its entry into force points in the same direction.
The legal logic is straightforward and powerful:
→ An applicant who attempted to file before 2025 but was denied the opportunity due to the Consulate’s failure to provide an appointment cannot be evaluated under rules that did not exist at the time they sought to file.
→ The governing law for such a case is the pre-2025 legislation — the law that was in force when the applicant had the right to proceed.
→ This argument stands independently of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on Article 3-bis. It rests on a fundamental principle: a party cannot be penalized for failing to comply with a procedure that the responsible authority made impossible.
→ The right to citizenship in these cases existed at birth. The Consulate’s systematic failure to provide appointments cannot extinguish a right that, by the Court’s own reaffirmation in Judgment 63/2026, is acquired by birth and merely awaits declaratory confirmation.
This argument is, in our view, the single most powerful avenue for clients who tried to file before 2025 but were blocked by Consular dysfunction. But it depends decisively on documentary evidence.
What clients in this category MUST gather and preserve
We urge every client and prospective client in this category to begin assembling the following evidence immediately:
→ Prenot@mi portal registration emails. When you first registered on the Prenot@mi system, the platform automatically sent you a confirmation email. This email — even if dated years ago — is one of the strongest pieces of evidence you can produce, because it was generated automatically by the Italian government’s own system and proves you were already engaging with the Consular process before 2025.
→ All email correspondence with the Consulate. Any email exchange with the Consulate, however brief — confirmations, replies, automated responses, requests for documents, queries about appointments — is evidence of attempted engagement. Search your inbox carefully, including spam and archived folders.
→ Screenshots and records of failed appointment attempts. Screenshots showing “no appointments available,” waitlist confirmations, error messages, or empty calendar pages from the Prenot@mi portal are highly probative. If you took such screenshots in past years, retrieve them now. If you have records of when you logged in to check for availability, those records matter.
→ Records of any other outreach to Consular authorities. Phone call logs, certified mail receipts (raccomandate), PEC communications, contacts through Italian consular networks abroad, or interactions with honorary consulates — all of this can support the record.
→ Documentation of your application file preparation. Apostilles, sworn translations, vital records gathered, payments to genealogists, notarized documents — anything that demonstrates you were actively building your application package in the years before 2025.
If you are uncertain whether a given piece of evidence is relevant, send it to us. We will assess each item individually and advise on how it fits into your case file.
We are actively pursuing these cases and will continue to do so. The legal landscape now rewards specificity: the stronger your documentary record, the stronger your case.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. 1948 CASES — CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED, UNAFFECTED BY LAW 74/2025
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This point cannot be made strongly enough: Judgment No. 63/2026 does not touch 1948 cases. Law 74/2025 does not touch 1948 cases. The Tajani Decree does not touch 1948 cases.
Clients with a 1948 case — that is, cases where Italian lineage passes through a female ancestor at any point prior to January 1, 1948 — occupy a legally distinct and constitutionally protected position. The right in 1948 cases does not derive from any statute that the legislature can amend. It derives directly from the Italian Constitution, as declared by the Constitutional Court itself:
→ Judgment No. 87/1975 — the loss of citizenship by women upon marriage held unconstitutional under Articles 3 and 29 of the Constitution.
→ Judgment No. 30/1983 — the exclusion of Italian mothers from transmitting citizenship to their children held unconstitutional.
These rights flow directly from the Constitution. Law 74/2025 is ordinary legislation. Under Article 136 of the Constitution, ordinary legislation cannot override constitutionally grounded rights recognized through binding constitutional jurisprudence. The Tajani Decree operates on a legal plane that simply does not apply to 1948 cases.
We are proceeding with all 1948 cases exactly as before. Filings continue. Hearings proceed on schedule. Strategy is unchanged. Clients in this category should feel fully reassured: nothing in Judgment 63/2026 alters the position of 1948 cases in any way.
Have a 1948 case — or think you might? Whether you are an existing client awaiting a hearing or a new applicant exploring your maternal-line claim, this is the moment to move forward with confidence. Our 1948 case practice is among the most active in Italy, and the path remains fully open. → Start your 1948 case today
→ The right recognized in 1948 cases does not derive from any statute. It derives directly from the Italian Constitution, as declared by the Constitutional Court itself in Judgment No. 87/1975 (loss of citizenship for women upon marriage held unconstitutional under Articles 3 and 29 of the Constitution) and Judgment No. 30/1983 (exclusion of Italian mothers from transmitting citizenship to their children held unconstitutional).
→ Law 74/2025 is ordinary legislation. It can modify statutory rights. It cannot override constitutionally grounded rights recognized through binding constitutional jurisprudence.
→ The Tajani Decree operates on a different legal plane from the one your case rests upon. It has no jurisdiction over 1948 cases.
We are proceeding with all 1948 cases without interruption.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. DUAL NATIONALITY AND ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP CASES — WE ARE CHALLENGING THE RESTRICTION AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One of the most significant provisions introduced by Law 74/2025 concerns applicants who are children or grandchildren of Italian citizens but who already hold another nationality. The Decree seeks to restrict or limit citizenship recognition for this category of applicants.
Our position is that this restriction is unconstitutional, and we are acting accordingly.
→ Italian citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis) is a right grounded in the principle of continuity of citizenship across generations, a principle that has been consistently upheld in Italian constitutional and civil jurisprudence.
→ Penalizing applicants solely on the basis of holding a foreign nationality introduces a discriminatory criterion that conflicts with constitutional principles of equality (Article 3 of the Constitution) and with the fundamental nature of jure sanguinis recognition.
→ We are filing cases on behalf of affected clients and will formally petition the Courts to refer this constitutional question to the Corte Costituzionale for a definitive ruling.
We consider this one of the most important fronts in the post-2025 citizenship landscape, and we are fully committed to advancing it.
Our constitutional challenge rests on the following grounds:
→ Article 22 of the Italian Constitution expressly prohibits the deprivation of citizenship for political reasons and establishes citizenship as a fundamental legal status. Conditioning the recognition of a birthright citizenship claim on the absence of a foreign nationality introduces an arbitrary and constitutionally impermissible barrier.
→ Article 3 of the Constitution guarantees equal treatment before the law. Applicants who qualify under the same jure sanguinis lineage cannot be treated differently solely on the basis of whether they happen to hold another passport. Such differentiation lacks a constitutionally legitimate justification and introduces an inequality directly inconsistent with the equal dignity of all citizens.
→ The nature of jure sanguinis recognition is declaratory, not constitutive. This principle, firmly established in Italian civil and constitutional jurisprudence — including by the Corte di Cassazione in its consistent interpretation of the citizenship transmission chain — means that Italian citizenship by descent is not a benefit granted by the State at its discretion: it is the judicial acknowledgment of a status that already exists by operation of law. A provision that conditions this recognition on renouncing or not holding a foreign nationality fundamentally mischaracterizes the nature of the right itself and conflicts with the declaratory framework that Italian courts have consistently applied.
→ Furthermore, the restriction may conflict with Article 117 of the Constitution, which requires Italian law to conform to international treaty obligations — including those that protect the right to nationality and guard against statelessness or the arbitrary denial of nationality claims.
This is an evolving area of litigation. As the constitutional question has not yet received a definitive ruling, our strategy is to build the jurisprudential record through active filings and to seek a referral to the Corte Costituzionale at the earliest opportunity. We regard this as one of the most consequential legal battles in the post-2025 citizenship landscape.
4. THE BROADER LITIGATION LANDSCAPE — MULTIPLE FRONTS REMAIN OPEN
Judgment 63/2026 addressed the specific questions referred by the Tribunal of Turin. It is one chapter, not the whole story. Several significant fronts remain active:
→ The Mantova constitutional question is scheduled for hearing in June 2026. It raises distinct profiles of constitutional illegitimacy not exhausted by the Turin decision.
→ The Cassazione is consolidating its position on the declarative nature of citizenship and on the principle of tempus regit actum — the rule that a case must be decided under the law in force at the time the right matured.
→ Lower courts continue to grant citizenship in carefully argued post-Decree cases. The Tribunal of Brescia (Decision No. 3280/2026) limited the reach of the new law for descendants whose rights had already matured. The Tribunal of Venice (March 12, 2026) recognized citizenship in a case directly structured against the Decree’s effects. The Tribunal of Bologna (Ruling No. 3335/26 of April 17, 2026) granted citizenship to an 11-member family in the post-Tajani Decree framework.
→ The lack-of-appointment doctrine — discussed in Section 3 above — provides an autonomous and resilient ground that operates independently of how any further constitutional question is decided.
The picture is not one of closure. It is one of an evolving jurisprudence in which carefully built cases continue to succeed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONCLUSION
Bersani Law Firm & Partners continues to represent its clients across all categories with full confidence in the legal grounds available. Judgment No. 63/2026 has clarified the framework, but it has not — by its own express terms — extinguished the rights of those whose claims matured before its entry into force, nor has it touched 1948 cases, which rest on constitutional foundations that no ordinary legislation can disturb.
For 1948 case clients: nothing changes. Filings continue exactly as before.
For lack-of-appointment clients: the case remains strong, and the time to assemble documentary evidence of pre-2025 outreach to the Consulate is now.
For all clients: the legal arguments in favor of recognition — built on the declaratory nature of citizenship, on tempus regit actum, on Article 136 of the Constitution, and on the binding force of Judgments 87/1975 and 30/1983 — remain intact. We will issue further updates as the June 2026 Mantova hearing approaches and as additional jurisprudence develops.
Ready to move forward? Whether you have an active case, are weighing your options after Judgment 63/2026, or are gathering evidence of pre-2025 Consular outreach, our team is ready to help. → Book your consultation now
For inquiries, please contact our office directly: mbersanilaw.com/contatti
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bersani Law Firm & Partners continues to represent its clients across all three of the above categories with full confidence in the legal grounds available. The Constitutional Court proceedings are ongoing, and its ruling has significant implications for the estimated 80 million people worldwide who claim Italian descent. The legal landscape for Italian citizenship applications has narrowed significantly due to the new laws, requiring detailed case-by-case analysis. The legal arguments in favor of our clients remain strong and, in the case of 1948 cases, constitutionally entrenched.
The Supreme Court will address the issue of the retroactivity of the Tajani Decree on April 11, 2026, a decision that could alter or affirm the rulings of lower courts regarding constitutional and legal issues. Notably, the Mantova Court and Campobasso Court have filed independent constitutional challenges against the Tajani Decree, and lower courts continue to play a crucial role in shaping the ongoing legal debate surrounding Italian citizenship law reform.
Additionally, a special provision in Law 74/2025 allows for the reacquisition of citizenship without residency requirements for those who lost citizenship before 1992, open until December 31, 2027. Pending applications filed before March 28, 2025, remain protected and will be processed under the previous, less-restrictive rules.
We will issue further updates as the June 2026 hearings approach.
For inquiries, please contact our office directly: mbersanilaw.com/contatti
Bersani Law Firm & Partners