Decision of the Court of Rome, I Civil Section, No. 11280 of 13 May 2016

The case decided by the Court of Rome concerned the non-recognition of Italian nationality by the administrative authority to the sons of an Italian woman resident in Brazil, where she had married a Brazilian citizen. All these events took place before the Italian Constitution entered into force. The then applicable regulation was found in law No. 55 of 1912, which provided the loss of Italian nationality of Italian women married with a foreign citizen. The Constitutional Court later declared these provisions unconstitutional because incompatible with the gender equality principle in family law, and the prohibition of any form of discrimination against women. The Court of Rome observed that these decisions of the Constitutional Court have retroactive effects, so that the provisions in questions cannot prejudice individuals’ subjective rights, if still existent, deriving from pre-constitutional situations. The Court therefore ordered the administrative authority to recognize that the applicants had acquired the Italian citizenship from their mother, at the time of their birth.