Italy's Court of Cassation is poised to settle the dispute over citizenship by descent. (ius sanguinis)The United Sections examined the central points of the reform in hearing of April 14, 2026And the expectation is that the decision standardizing the understanding will be released before the Judiciary's recess, which begins on August 1st.
The wait continues while Italian courts accumulate favorable rulings, although there are still judgments to the contrary. The most recent came from the Naples Court, which became final on July 10th, and recognized the citizenship of two Italian-Brazilians in a lawsuit filed on February 6th, 2026, already under the restrictions of Law 74/2025. The case was handled by lawyer Maria Stella La Malfa.
This is not the first time the same court has ruled in this way. Italianismo had already reported a similar ruling from Naples.This reinforces the idea that this is not an isolated case.
What the Cassation Office has already said
The Neapolitan court itself relied on a recent precedent from the Court of Cassation to reach its decision. In the cited ruling, the Court classified citizenship as an "absolute subjective right of high constitutional relevance, existing from the holder's birth, of a permanent and imprescriptible nature."
The Supreme Court reaffirmed: citizenship is born with the person.
- New legal front opened
- Processes can still be filed.
- Individual assessment before any decision.
The Cassation Office has also acknowledged that there is a legitimate interest in taking action even when the citizen is unable to submit the request: "when impediments, difficulties, or delays occur that prevent even the submission of the request."
The case
The family attempted to schedule an appointment through the Prenot@mi system starting in December 2024, but was unable to find an available date. The judge accepted as evidence the screenshots taken before March 27, 2025, the deadline set by the reform, and concluded that the system failure cannot be attributed to the person who attempted to access it.
The applicants' grandfather emigrated to Brazil at the end of the 19th century and never became a naturalized Brazilian citizen, according to the Negative Naturalization Certificate presented in the case file. Therefore, the case falls under the safeguard of letter c of the new rule, which preserves the right. when an ancestor possessed only Italian citizenship..
