Italy’s 2025 Citizenship Reform Faces a New Constitutional Challenge: The Avellino Case

The legal debate over Italy’s 2025 citizenship reform is far from over.

After the Italian Constitutional Court referred important questions concerning the retroactive application of the reform to the Court of Justice of the European Union in July 2026, a new constitutional challenge has now emerged from the Court of Avellino.

At the heart of the case is a simple but fundamental question raised by the Court of Avellino: can a new law change the citizenship status of someone who, under the rules in force when they were born, was already considered an Italian citizen?

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What Happened

The Court of Avellino has asked the Italian Constitutional Court to examine whether one of the key provisions introduced by the 2025 citizenship reform (Article 3-bis of Law No. 91/1992) is compatible with the Italian Constitution. To learn more about the changes introduced by the 2025 reform, you can read our dedicated article here.

The most controversial piece of the reform is its application to people who were born abroad before the new rule came into force.

Under the new law introduced in March 2025, these individuals are treated as if they had never acquired Italian citizenship,unless they meet the specific conditions set out by the new law.

The Court of Avellino argues that applying this rule retroactively conflicts with Articles 2, 3, and 22 of the Italian Constitution — the provisions that protect fundamental rights, equality and reasonableness, and that explicitly prohibit stripping someone of their citizenship for political reasons.

The case examined by the Court of Avellino

The case involves a child who was born abroad.

Her father's Italian citizenship iure sanguinis had already been confirmed by an Italian court decision.

The Italian civil registry refused to register the child’s birth certificate, so the parents asked the Court of Avellino to overturn the refusal issued by the local municipality.

Under the rules in place before the March 2025 reform, the child would have been considered an Italian citizen from birth.

Italian case law had long been clear on this point: citizenship iure sanguinis was considered to be acquired automatically at birth. Once acquired, it was considered permanent, did not expire, and could be claimed in court at any time.

In other words, a descendant of an Italian citizen didn't become a citizen because of a court ruling — they were already considered one from birth. The ruling simply formally acknowledged a status that already existed.

However, because the child falls within the scope of the new rules introduced by the 2025 reform and does not meet any of the exceptions provided by the law, the outcome would now be different.

The Avellino Court’s reasoning

The government's own explanatory report describes Article 3-bis as a rule that prevents the automatic acquisition of citizenship retroactively (ex tunc) — not as a way of taking citizenship away from someone who already had it.

The Court of Avellino disagrees with that framing, at least for people born before the reform.

Its reasoning is straightforward: if someone was already an Italian citizen from birth under the rules in force at the time, then a law declaring they must be treated as if they never acquired that citizenship isn't really "preventing" anything — it's undoing a legal status that already existed.

In practical terms, the court sees this as functionally equivalent to a retroactive revocation of citizenship.

The Constitutional Problem

This is precisely where the Avellino court sees a conflict with the Constitution.

People born under the old rules built their expectations around a legal status the courts consistently recognized as already theirs.

Applying the 2025 reform retroactively to them, the Court argues, undermines the constitutional principles of reasonableness and legitimate reliance on the law (Articles 2 and 3).

The court also raises a second, more pointed objection under Article 22 of the Constitution, which explicitly prohibits depriving anyone of their citizenship for political reasons.

What This Means If You Were Born Before March 2025

If you were born abroad to an Italian citizen ancestor before the 2025 reform took effect, this development may be relevant to your situation.

Indeed, the retroactive application of the 2025 reform remains the subject of several ongoing legal challenges.

In July 2026, the Italian Constitutional Court referred important questions concerning the retroactive application of the new law to the Court of Justice of the European Union (to learn more about this referral, read our dedicated article here). Now, the Court of Avellino has raised a separate challenge before the Italian Constitutional Court, questioning whether applying the new rules to people born before the reform is compatible with the Italian Constitution.

Taken together, these developments show that the retroactive scope of the new rules is not a settled issue — it is now formally an open legal question at both the Italian constitutional and European level.

This does not mean that the outcome is guaranteed. It does mean, however, that there is now more than one serious legal challenge questioning whether the new law can be applied retroactively to people born before the reform.

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Article written on September 18th 2026