"The game is not over. It has only just begun." With this statement, professor and jurist Rui Badaró defines the current stage of the legal dispute after the publication of the... Judgment 63/2026 of the Italian Constitutional CourtThe document, filed on April 30, 2026, validates the restrictions imposed on citizenship by right of blood.
At the heart of the controversy is Article 3-bis of Law 91/1992. This provision stipulates that anyone born abroad, holding another nationality, and who has not filed a citizenship application by March 2025 “is considered never to have acquired Italian citizenship.” According to Badaró, who holds a doctorate in International Law and is a visiting professor at the Università degli Studi di Trieste in Italy, this formula is “mass denationalization converted into an elegant legislative technique.”
Original preclusion
The Court introduced a new legal concept called preclusione originaria all'acquisto della cittadinanza (original preclusion to the acquisition of citizenship). In an extensive article in the magazine Consultor Jurídico, this Wednesday (6), the jurist criticizes the technical maneuver. According to him, “the name is new. The thing is not”.
Badaró argues that the court used a dogmatic approach to avoid the rule being declared unconstitutional. The jurist emphasizes that the ruling was written with the “technical skill of Giovanni Pitruzzella.” He points out that the rapporteur's sophistication served to give a new name to an old practice.
The expert states that the effect of the law is identical to that of a retroactive repeal. However, the Court classified the mechanism as mere preclusion to circumvent guarantees of European law. Badaró is emphatic in classifying the strategy: "nominalism, in law, is the refined name for fraud."
Breaking with tradition
The expert points out that the decision reverses the legal legacy of Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, who in 1851 made Italy the homeland of unlimited jus sanguinis. The current ruling establishes what Badaró calls "jus sanguinis under the condition of effectiveness." For him, it is a "fraud of meaning" constructed to escape the control of the European Union.
The ruling also uses the concept of "genuine bond" to justify the restrictions. Badaró points out that the Court configures the people as a community of political destinies. He warns that this view is a "theory of low democratic intensity" and that the decision operates a silent paradigmatic rupture in the system.
Legal avenues
The professor criticizes the Court's refusal to submit the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union. By invoking the doctrine of clear act, the court allegedly avoided examining the proportionality of the loss of citizenship. Badaró argues that the Court authorized the legislature to create factual premises that preclude international control.
Despite the decision, the legal expert foresees the continuation of the legal battle. He cites the reopening of the debate by the Campobasso Court on June 9th, and the avenues not yet explored in Strasbourg (conventional) and Luxembourg (European). Badaró concludes that the appropriate response to the Constitution still needs to be given through other judicial means.
