The United Sections have rejected the restrictive “minor case” interpretation that began in Rome in 2019. The decision (Sez. Un. no. 24045 del 26 luglio 2026) is the result of seven years of challenges by attorneys and descendants who refused to accept that more than a century of citizenship law could be overturned in this way.
Justice does not always arrive quickly.
Sometimes it requires years of litigation, repeated adverse decisions, significant financial and emotional sacrifice, and attorneys who continue challenging an interpretation even after it has become the prevailing judicial approach.
The story of the Italian citizenship “minor case” began in 2019, when the Court of Rome started rejecting claims involving an Italian ancestor who had naturalized while the next person in the line of descent was still a minor.
At that time, the Court of Rome was the only court in Italy handling citizenship-by-descent claims brought by descendants residing abroad. An interpretation developed by that single court therefore affected applicants throughout the world.
The new approach departed from the interpretation followed by the Italian public administration for more than a century. Under that longstanding position, the naturalization of an Italian parent did not cause a child who was already an Italian and foreign citizen from birth to lose Italian citizenship.
Nevertheless, beginning in 2019, the Court of Rome applied the opposite interpretation.
That was the beginning of seven years of litigation.
When citizenship cases moved beyond Rome
The situation initially changed in 2022, when jurisdiction over citizenship cases was transferred from the Court of Rome to the local courts connected to the Italian ancestor’s place of origin.
Many local courts did not follow the restrictive interpretation created in Rome.
Courts including Naples, Palermo, L’Aquila and many others approved hundreds of minor cases. For a period, descendants in substantially identical situations could receive very different outcomes depending on which court was hearing the case.
The Rome approach had not yet become a uniform national rule.
The turning point came when rejections issued in Rome were challenged before the Rome Court of Appeal and then escalated to the First Civil Section of the Italian Supreme Court.
The First Section issued its first negative decision in late 2023, followed by another decision in early 2024. These rulings endorsed the restrictive minor-case interpretation and began influencing courts throughout Italy.
The Ministry of the Interior changes its position
The decisive institutional shift came in October 2024.
Until then, the Ministry of the Interior had followed the longstanding administrative interpretation based on the Council of State opinions issued in 1975 and 1990, as well as the ministerial circulars that followed.
In October 2024, however, the Ministry aligned its position with the new Supreme Court decisions.
Consulates, municipalities and the State Attorney’s Office were instructed to follow the restrictive approach.
The consequences were immediate.
State attorneys began systematically raising the 2023 and 2024 Supreme Court decisions in pending judicial proceedings, and courts throughout Italy increasingly followed the same interpretation.
At the same time, pending administrative applications before consulates and municipalities were rejected on a broad scale. Applicants who had relied on the administrative interpretation followed for decades suddenly received negative decisions based on the new approach.
From late 2024 onward, the restrictive interpretation spread across the judicial and administrative system, resulting in hundreds—and likely thousands—of rejected claims.
Some challenged the rejection. Others did not because of procedural mistakes in filing an appeal, lack of financial resources, exhaustion, frustration or anger after years of uncertainty. Some of those cases may now be permanently closed.
The referral to the United Sections
In 2025, the First Civil Section recognized that the issue required an authoritative determination and referred the matter to the United Sections, the Supreme Court’s highest civil formation.
Initially, many trial judges agreed to postpone their decisions while waiting for the United Sections to clarify the law.
That pause did not last.
Following the Constitutional Court’s press release of March 12, 2026, courts began deciding large numbers of citizenship cases. Task forces of judges in the citizenship section of the 26 courts involved in the matter had been created to reduce the judicial backlog and help the justice system meet the PNRR target by June 30, 2026.
As the deadline approached, judges who had previously agreed to wait were increasingly called upon to decide pending cases. The result was a further wave of minor-case rejections while the decisive question was still pending before the United Sections.
Some descendants appealed and preserved their claims. For others, the period to appeal is still pending and have the opportunity to benefit from the United Sections’ decision.
Seven years of challenges made this decision possible
The United Sections have now rejected the restrictive interpretation.
This result did not happen automatically.
It was made possible by the attorneys who continued challenging the Rome approach through the trial courts, the Rome Court of Appeal, the First Section of the Supreme Court and finally the United Sections.
It was also made possible by the descendants who continued their cases despite the cost, uncertainty, delays and repeated negative decisions. And the task became even greater when appealing with the Supreme Court where only 25% of cases are successful.
Without those appeals, the United Sections would never have had the opportunity to correct the law.
After seven years, the Court has confirmed that a child born abroad as both an Italian citizen and a citizen of the country of birth did not lose Italian citizenship merely because the Italian parent later naturalized while the child was still a minor.
The Court also confirmed that judicial claims filed within the March 27, 2025 statutory cutoff remain governed by the previous citizenship framework.
The legal victory is significant. The practical consequences, however, are not the same for everyone.
Cases still pending before a Tribunal
The decision has an immediate effect on minor cases filed in court by March 27, 2025 and still pending before a first-instance court.
Those cases remain governed by the citizenship law in force before the 2025 reform. The courts must now decide them in accordance with the principles established by the United Sections.
For these descendants, the ruling may be decisive.
Cases pending before a Court of Appeal
The decision is equally important for descendants whose claims were rejected by a Tribunal but who filed an appeal.
The appeal prevented the rejection from becoming final. The Court of Appeal must now reconsider the case in light of the United Sections decision.
This includes proceedings rejected after the restrictive interpretation spread nationally in late 2024, as well as cases decided during the accelerated PNRR period in 2026, provided the case was filed on or before March 27, 2025.
Those descendants preserved their claims and are now in a very strong position.
Rejected court cases that can still be appealed
Anyone who has received a negative court judgment but remains within the applicable appeal period should act promptly.
The United Sections decision does not automatically cancel an earlier rejection. An appeal must still be filed before the relevant deadline expires.
If no appeal is filed in time, the judgment will ordinarily become final, and no other remedy is then possible (read further below).
Filing the appeal preserves the claim and allows the Court of Appeal to apply the principles established by the United Sections.
Cases pending before the Supreme Court
There are also minor cases currently pending before the First Civil Section of the Supreme Court.
These proceedings arose from past decisions issued by the Rome Court of Appeal.
Where the Rome Court of Appeal rejected the citizenship claim using the interpretation that has now been overturned, the expected result is that the Supreme Court will annul the decision and return the case to the Rome Court of Appeal.
The Rome Court of Appeal will then decide the merits again, applying the principles established by the United Sections. MLI clients whose case is pending before the Supreme Court will receive personal updates on next steps.
Court judgments that have already become final
Unfortunately, the position is different for descendants who received a judicial rejection, did not appeal it and allowed the judgment to become final.
A final court judgment is protected by the principle of res judicata.
A later and more favorable interpretation of the law does not ordinarily reopen a judicial case that has already been conclusively decided.
This means that some descendants who lost minor cases during the last several years may no longer be able to benefit from the correction made by the United Sections.
This is one of the most painful consequences of the time required for the issue to reach the Supreme Court’s highest civil formation.
Administrative rejections are different
An administrative rejection issued by a consulate or municipality is not the same as a final court judgment.
It does not create res judicata in the judicial sense.
However, this does not mean that an applicant can necessarily bring the same claim today under the former law.
The decisive question is whether the administrative rejection was challenged in court before the 2025 reform.
Applicants who challenged a consular or municipal rejection and filed a judicial case by March 27, 2025 are in a much stronger position. Their proceedings were already pending before the new law entered into force, and the previous citizenship framework continues to apply.
The position is much more difficult for applicants who received an administrative rejection but did not file a court case before the reform.
They are now in the same position as anyone who is collecting documents, preparing a petition or considering filing a case but has not yet done so.
Under the current law, they face the restrictions introduced by Article 3-bis.
What about those who stopped before filing?
We are already hearing from former clients and individuals who previously contacted us about a minor case but decided not to proceed, or who began working on their case and later stopped.
Many are now asking whether, following the United Sections decision, they can simply resume the process and file their case today.
Unfortunately, the answer is generally no.
The United Sections restored the correct interpretation of the previous legal framework. It did not remove the restrictions introduced by the 2025 reform.
A case filed today is governed by Article 3-bis and must generally satisfy two separate conditions:
- the applicant must fall within the two-generation limit; and
- the relevant parent or grandparent must possess, or have possessed at death, exclusively Italian citizenship.
A traditional minor case necessarily involves an Italian ancestor who naturalized abroad.
That naturalization is precisely what prevents the exclusivity requirement from being satisfied.
Therefore, even a person who is within two generations cannot presently file a minor case and expect the United Sections decision, by itself, to result in recognition.
Those who stopped before filing, those who decided not to proceed, those who did not challenge a consular or municipal rejection and those who are still collecting documents are now all in the same legal position: they have not filed a protected judicial claim and are therefore subject to the new framework.
Their position may improve if the new regulation changes as a result of the proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union or a future constitutional challenge to the exclusivity requirement (see below).
Until one of those developments occurs, however, the traditional minor case is not currently available to them.
Why the minor case currently has little practical effect for new claims
Under the present Article 3-bis framework, being within two generations is not enough.
The qualifying parent or grandparent must also possess—or have possessed at death—exclusively Italian citizenship.
Once the Italian ancestor naturalized abroad, the exclusivity requirement becomes the principal obstacle.
Therefore, even a second-generation descendant cannot currently rely on the minor-case principle if the relevant ancestor naturalized.
Under the new law, it may no longer matter whether the naturalization occurred while the child was still a minor, after the child reached adulthood or many years later.
The naturalization itself defeats the exclusivity requirement.
For this reason, the United Sections decision immediately benefits claims governed by the previous law, but does not by itself restore the minor case for new claims brought under Article 3-bis.
The first possible pathway: the Court of Justice of the European Union
The first major possibility concerns the pending proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union.
If the CJEU determines that the retroactive application of the new citizenship restrictions conflicts with EU law, Italian judges may be required to disapply the incompatible national provisions within the scope of that ruling.
This could immediately affect pending cases.
The same could apply to new cases filed after the CJEU judgment and before the Italian Government and Parliament introduce a replacement framework consistent with EU law.
During that period, the previous citizenship regime could become applicable again, and the United Sections’ favorable minor-case decision would regain broad practical importance.
The position could also change if the CJEU concludes that Italy was required to provide an appropriate transitional window or an individualized procedure protecting legitimate expectations and allowing each person’s circumstances to be considered.
The precise consequences will depend on the scope and wording of the European judgment.
The second possible pathway: the Constitutional Court
If the CJEU does not remove or limit the retroactive application of Article 3-bis, the current two-generation limit and exclusivity requirement would remain in force.
In that scenario, the most realistic way to revive the minor case would be a constitutional challenge to the exclusivity requirement.
A trial judge would first have to conclude that the constitutional question is relevant to the case and not manifestly unfounded.
The judge would then refer the issue to the Constitutional Court.
If the Constitutional Court declared the exclusivity requirement unreasonable, disproportionate or otherwise unconstitutional, the minor-case principle could become relevant again.
However, if only the exclusivity requirement were removed or limited, while the two-generation limit remained in force, the minor case would revive only within that two-generation framework.
A first- or second-generation descendant could then potentially rely on the United Sections decision despite the ancestor’s naturalization.
Descendants beyond the second generation would still face the separate generational limit unless that restriction were also overturned.
What should clients do now?
- Case pending before a Tribunal: wait for the judge to apply the United Sections’ decision.
- Case rejected, with the appeal deadline still open: file the appeal promptly.
- Appeal already pending: wait for the panel of three judges to decide the case according to the principles established by the United Sections.
- Case pending before the Supreme Court: wait for the Supreme Court to apply the ruling and, where appropriate, return the matter to the Rome Court of Appeal, who will remake their decision.
- Judicial rejection already final: there is generally little that can be done because of res judicata.
- No court case filed yet: this includes those who did not challenge a consular or municipal rejection before the reform, those who stopped working on their case and those who are still collecting documents or preparing a petition. They are all subject to the current Article 3-bis framework.
For this last group, a future opportunity may arise if the CJEU excludes retroactive application of the new law or finds that Italy was required to provide an appropriate transitional window or individualized protection of legitimate expectations.
Separately, for descendants within the two-generation limit, the minor-case principle could be revived if a judge refers the exclusivity requirement to the Constitutional Court and the Court removes or limits it.
We understand that this development is likely to be disappointing but do not be disheartened. Determination and perseverance in the minor case debate, and many others, have overturned or lessened many obstacles in citizenship by descent. Knowing how important prior intent and activation of citizenship is (i.e. evidence of the case starting or being in the judicial pipeline), we advise clients that are still determined to move forward with their case to do so, with a full understanding of the risk of the case not being successful.
This decision closes one chapter, but its full effect will now depend on the constitutional and European challenges that remain unresolved.
Our clients will be contacted in the coming days with case-specific information. Those with pending proceedings will receive an update on how we intend to move forward in light of this decision. Those who have not yet taken action will be informed of the options that may still be available to them, together with the relevant legal risks and limitations.