“It’s pointless to continue, the law is on their side.” The phrase of surrender is Camillo De Pellegrin, mayor of Zoldo Valleyin northern Italy. A notorious critic of the rights of Brazilian citizens seeking Italian citizenship, he saw his administrative action against 12 applicants unsuccessfully dismissed.
For Pellegrin, known for his criticism of Italian-Brazilians, this decision represents a significant setback. He used to have ample space in the Italian press to attack “neo-Italians”, under the pretext of protecting the interests of local citizens.
The legal battle surrounding the expansion of Italian citizenship for Brazilian descendants has reached a conclusion in the first instance. The Lazio Regional Administrative Court has declared the litigation over.
Four months ago, the Junta do Comune de Val di Zoldo had authorized “resistance and judicial challenge”, assigning lawyer Innocenzo Megali to the defense.
Hope to protect the interests of the municipality
On January 26th, when the Brazilian flag was raised in protestVal di Zoldo already had 551 pending applications submitted by Italian-Brazilians seeking recognition of Italian citizenship by jus sanguinis. "Now we've reached 700 and we continue to receive requests: we're not getting out of this spiral," laments De Pellegrin, who, at the beginning of the year, still hoped to "protect the interests" of the municipality.
This occurred after the Civil Court of Rome, in 2022, recognized the Italian nationality of twelve descendants of a compatriot who emigrated to Brazil.
The descendants sent to the mayor, as civil registration officer, “all original civil registration certificates, accompanied by translation and apostille”, guaranteeing the legal validity of the documents between the two countries.
They resorted to TAR
When they received no response, last July, the new citizens sent a notification and warning to the city hall, which was also not responded to. As a result, they appealed to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court.
“With the current structure of the law”, explains De Pellegrin, “we realized that we would only be paying legal expenses without obtaining any results”, he told Il Gazzettino newspaper.
“It is an embarrassing situation considering there are estimated to be at least 70 million potential applicants. Here in my municipality, where I only have one and a half people to manage the department that deals with demographic services and local police, we have been forced to reduce other activities aimed at local citizens to deal with people who will probably never live here. We need workers in the mountains, but none of these Italian-Brazilians are applying for citizenship to work here; maybe they want her to get some subsidy ou travel more easily“, concluded the mayor.
