Italian Citizenship through the maternal trial

Cerulli Arena Law Firm has a wide experience in the judicial recognizance of the Italian citizenship transmitted by the mother.

1912 Citizenship Act does not let Italian women transmit the Italian citizenship; consequently, their descendents cannot request the citizenship through an administrative procedure. In these cases, the persons that are interested in obtaining the citizenship have to start a trial in Italy.

When the Italian Constitution, which comes into effect in 1948, establishes that men and women have the same rights, people born abroad after 1948 from an Italian woman or Italian people descents may request the Italian citizenship through an administrative procedure.

Unfortunately, the new law is not retroactive, and so it does not apply to people born before 01/01/1948.

In these cases, the persons interested in obtaining the Italian citizenship recognizance have to start a trial in Italy.

As it happens in any trial, the lawyer presents the file formed by the complaint and the documents that prove the relationship between the person that was born in Italy and the plaintiffs.

The lawyer presents the file before the Italian courts and a number is given; we send this number to the client so that he/she follows his/her case on-line.

The president of the court appoints a judge for the file, and this may take quite a lot of time.

The judge appointed establishes a day on which the lawyer goes to a hearing.

After the hearing, the judge issues an order that the lawyer sends to the client so that the latter controls that it does not have any material error.

If everything is ok, the order is served and, after the legal term elapses, the decision becomes res judicata.

After the decision becomes res judicata, the lawyer requests the order and picks the original documents that were submitted.

The lawyer notifies the order to the competent Consulates, based on the plaintiffs’ domicile.

The decision which became res judicata and the documents are sent to the client, and the client presents them to the competent Consulate so that the order and the documents are transcribed, and the client may request the Italian passport.

In 2009, an order issued by the Court of Cassation declared that it is discriminatory  that women cannot transmit the Italian citizenship to their descents: consequently, hundreds of persons obtained the Italian citizenship recognizance through the mother, starting a legal action based on this precedent.

The law firm assists its clients in the process

• Preparation and preliminary study to search documents in the countries in which they were issued, something that prevents unnecessary expenses.
• Search and final collection of the legal documents.
• Translation, oath and/or necessary legalizations of the documents that will be presented before the courts.
• Procedural steps: presentation of the demand, hearings, until we obtain a final judgment. For this, we need the assistance of a lawyer registered in the Italian bar association. This is a contentious summary trial against the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
• Transcription of the order and actual recognizance of the citizenship.

The physical presence in Italy of the interested persons is not necessary in any of the stages mentioned above; the firm takes care of all the process in a direct form or through its assistants.