With judgment no. 63/2026, the Italian Constitutional Court validated the reform of citizenship by descent introduced by Decree-Law no. 36/2025, converted into Law no. 74/2025 (AKA Tajani Decree). A long-awaited, widely debated decision — and, for many of those directly affected, a profoundly unjust one. The Court rejected all constitutional challenges raised by the Turin Court, effectively endorsing the retroactivity of the reform and the distinction between “effective” and “virtual” citizenship. In these pages we analyse what the judgment says, what it leaves open, and why, on some fundamental points, it falls short.
Judgment no. 63/2026: structure and foundational premise
The Constitutional Court, with judgment no. 63 filed on 30 April 2026, rejected or declared inadmissible all the constitutional questions raised by the Turin Court on the new law on Italian citizenship by descent
Before addressing the individual objections, the Italian Corte Costituzionale considered it necessary to build a three-part preamble: a historical overview of Italian citizenship legislation, an analysis of how that legislation had progressively diverged from constitutional principles, and finally an illustration of the rationale behind the 2025 reform- Tjani decree
The most significant passage in this preamble is the definition of a genuine constitutional model of Italian citizenship, grounded in the principle of effectiveness. The Court states that with the Republican Constitution and universal suffrage, a “Copernican revolution” took place in the relationship between citizen and State: citizens are no longer passive subjects of an apparatus, but the people who constitute the State and hold its sovereignty. That sovereignty, however, only makes concrete sense if citizens genuinely participate in the life of the community, share rights and duties, and contribute to collective progress.It follows that a form of citizenship entirely detached from any real connection with Italy risks becoming a factor of crisis for the democratic principle rather than an enrichment of it.
The people, in the Court’s vision, is not an ethnic or genealogical concept, but a community of shared political destinies founded on effective bonds: solidarity, reciprocity of rights and duties, territorial roots, shared civic values.
This preamble is not a mere introduction: it is the keystone of the entire decision, and it marks a clear break from the previous judgment no. 142 of 2005, in which the Court had excluded the possibility of drawing solid constitutional references to assess the legitimacy of the legislation on citizenship by descent.
Vested rights: when is a right truly “acquired”?
One of the main arguments against the Italian citizenship law reform (Law 74/2025) was that it deprived people of already-acquired rights, violating legal certainty and the principle of legitimate expectations. The Court addresses this point with a precise and decisive distinction.
According to the Court, a right can truly be said to be “acquired” only when it is legally certain and concretely exercisable. In the case of Italian citizenship by descent, the status of citizen arises in the abstract at birth, but becomes real and operative only after an official recognition — administrative or judicial. Until that recognition occurs, there are no exercisable political rights, no duties of solidarity, no effective insertion into the Italian legal order.
Those who had never initiated any recognition procedure therefore held only a normative expectation, not a consolidated right. This is why the Court rejects the idea that the reform amounts to a “mass deprivation of citizenship”: what is affected is not a status already lived and recognised, but a future possibility not yet translated into concrete rights.
The people as a legal concept
Beyond the specific provisions of the reform, the Italian Constitutional Court takes the opportunity to redefine what “the people” means in constitutional terms.
Rather than an ethnic or genealogical group, the people is the community that holds sovereignty under Article 1 of the Constitution — a sovereignty that only has meaning when citizens actually share rights, duties and a common civic life. A citizenship with no real connection to that community, the Court argues, weakens rather than strengthens the democratic foundation of the State.
Retroactivity: a necessary choice, not a punitive one (according to the Court)
The decision to make the new rules on Italian citizenship jure sangunis retroactive is the most debated aspect of the reform and the one on which most of the constitutional litigation focused.
The Court does not present retroactivity as an unavoidable side effect, but as a logical and necessary consequence of the objective pursued. Had the reform applied only to those born after 2025, the problem would not have been solved: an already-existing pool of virtual citizens would have remained intact, with distorting effects on the electoral body and a growing rift between formal citizenship and the real community.
Retroactivity therefore serves, in the Court’s view, to realign ordinary legislation with constitutional principles. The Court describes it as a case of “genuine retroactivity” introducing an “original preclusion”: rather than revoking an acquired status, the legislature clarified — with immediate retrospective effect — that the conditions for acquiring it had never been fully met.
The Court noted that the legislature had preserved administrative and judicial proceedings already initiated by 27 March 2025, adopted compensatory measures, and introduced facilitated pathways to citizenship for foreigners of Italian descent residing in Italy. On this basis, the Court held the balance struck by the legislature to be constitutionally acceptable
European and international law: more limited protection than many expected
The Court also addressed the supranational law dimension of the reform of Italian citizneshio law. The questions raised with reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR were declared inadmissible; those concerning EU law were considered unfounded.
On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Court noted that, as a resolution of the UN General Assembly, it does not constitute a binding international instrument and therefore cannot serve as a parameter of constitutional review under Article 117 of the Constitution.
Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR was similarly set aside: the Court held that it does not guarantee any right to acquire or retain a specific citizenship and imposes no precise obligations on contracting States in this area.
As for EU law, the Court acknowledged the existence of a supranational constraint under Article 117 of the Constitution, but considered it satisfied. Drawing on the case law of the Court of Justice up to the 2025 Malta judgment, it identified two guiding principles — effectiveness and proportionality — and concluded that both had been respected. In the Court’s view, that case law addresses situations in which a Member State has deprived a person of an already-established and concretely exercised status, and does not extend to cases where formal recognition had not yet been obtained. The Court noted, however, that this interpretation is not the only possible one and that the question might in future warrant a referral to the Court of Justice.
You might be interested in reading Italian Citizenship by Descent After Law 74/2025: How Tribunals Are Deciding
Who is protected by the new law on Italian citizenship: certainties and grey areas
The reform on Italian citizenship (Decree n. 36/2025 converted into Law 74/2025) does not affect everyone indiscriminately. Those who remain subject to the previous legislation — and can therefore still obtain recognition of citizenship iure sanguinis under the old rules — are those who fall into the following categories:
- Those who had already initiated judicial proceedings pending as of 27 March 2025.
- Those who had already submitted a complete administrative application at the consulate or municipality by that date.
- Those who had already obtained a consular appointment by 27 March 2025 (protection introduced by Parliament during the conversion of the decree into law).
On this last point, however, an important grey area opens up. The Constitutionall Court, at par. 9.1, explicitly signals that it cannot examine the question of those who had requested an appointment but had not yet received one by the deadline. The difference in treatment may have a constitutional relevance that deserves examination.
The problem is clear: the scheduling of an appointment depends on the responsiveness of the consular administration, not on the applicant’s own initiative. Those who made a timely request but received no response in time find themselves in a worse position through no fault of their own, but because of the inefficiency of the public administration. It is likely that this question will soon return before the Constitutional Court – hearings scheduled on June 9th 2026
Why this judgment – Constitutional Court Italian citizenship falls short
I write these lines as a lawyer with many years of experience in citizenship iure sanguinis matters.
Constitutional Court Judgment no. 63/2026 raises several points worth examining critically. I will focus here on the two that, in my view, have the most significant practical consequences for those directly affected.
The first problem is retroactivity. Citizenship iure sanguinis is not a concession by the State: it is a subjective right that arises with the person, imprescriptible and permanent. This principle has been consolidated for decades in the case law of the Court of Cassation, reaffirmed just days ago in the order no. 13818/2026. The argument that the right produces no concrete effects until formal recognition is an innovative reading that departs significantly from the traditional approach and, in my view, sacrifices a well-established legal principle in the pursuit of an aim — however understandable — of containing the phenomenon.
The second problem. Thousands of people were unable to book a consular appointment simply because Italian consulates abroad — particularly in South America — were paralysed by years-long waiting lists, post-Covid backlogs, and non-functioning booking systems. This was not a matter of indifference or delay: it was materially impossible to act. Yet the reform excludes them, treating them as though they had deliberately chosen to do nothing.
The question of those who were unable to obtain an appointment remains open. The Constitutional Court itself, in ruling 63/2026 acknowledged the issue without resolving it. It may well be addressed in the hearing scheduled for 9 June 2026, which will examine the constitutional questions raised by the Mantua Court and the Campobasso Court.
