Order of the Court of Catania, I Civil Section, 13 April 2013

From Article 4.3 of law No. 40 of 2004 on medically assisted procreation it results an absolute prohibition of heterologous fertilization, which is incompatible with Articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights in its judgment of 2011 on the case S.H et al. v. Austria. This incompatibility cannot be remedied by means of interpretation and in such cases, as the Constitutional Court has clarified, the question of constitutional legitimacy of the national norm may arise. On these grounds, the Court of Catania ruled that the question of the constitutional legitimacy of Article 4.3 of law No. 40 with regard to Articles 2, 3, 31 e 32 of the Constitution was relevant and not manifestly unfounded.