Published: June 10 2026  |  Author: Avv. Salvatore Aprigliano  |  Aprigliano International Law Firm

Italian citizenship by descent after Tajani Decree (Law 74/2025): when the Italian birth record is enough to prove the ancestor never naturalized

SHORT ANSWER

The Tribunale Ordinario di Campobasso has issued judgment no. 408/2026, published on May 29, 2026, recognizing Italian citizenship by descent after Tajani Decree, for a second-generation applicant whose Italian-born ancestor emigrated to Canada without ever naturalizing.

This case was filed in November 2025, after the March 27, 2025 cutoff introduced by Decree-Law 36/2025, later converted into Law 74/2025,  the Tajani Decree.

The court did not require a formal certificate of non-naturalization from Canadian authorities. It accepted the Italian birth extract of the ancestor,  on which no loss of Italian citizenship had ever been annotated, as sufficient proof.

Disclosure: Aprigliano International Law Firm acted as counsel of record. This is a first-instance ruling, not binding precedent. It may be appealed.

Why this ruling matters for post-Tajani jure sanguinis litigation

Post-reform Italian citizenship by descent cases under Law 74/2025 have primarily been discussed in the context of generation limits and the March 27, 2025 cutoff. But there is a second, equally important dimension: evidentiary issues.

Even when an applicant falls within the permitted generational scope,  when a first- or second-degree ancestor held exclusively Italian citizenship, the applicant must still prove that the ancestor never naturalized abroad. In theory, this requires documentary evidence. In practice, obtaining it is often extremely difficult.

This Campobasso ruling shows that Italian courts may accept an alternative evidentiary path: proof by absence of annotation on the Italian birth record, rather than by a positive foreign certificate.

 

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The evidentiary problem that blocks many legitimate claims

Under Article 1, paragraph 1, letter “c” of Decree-Law 36/2025, a person born abroad is recognized as Italian only if a first- or second-degree ancestor holds, or held at the time of death, exclusively Italian citizenship. The word “exclusively” is new, introduced by the 2025 reform, and creates a documentary burden many applicants struggle to meet.

Many Italian ancestors emigrated without ever formally naturalizing. Records of that absence may be:

• unavailable because they were never created;
• lost, destroyed, or inaccessible;
• subject to multi-year waiting times for official requests;
• issued in formats not accepted by Italian courts;
• simply non-existent, because no naturalization occurred and no paper trail was generated.

The absence of naturalization left no paper trail, precisely because nothing happened.

That absence, however, is exactly what the applicant must prove.

What happened in this case

A second-generation descendant of an Italian-born man who emigrated to Canada, where he married and had children, his mother was born in Canada, and he himself was also born abroad.

Ancestral line: Italian-born grandfather (emigrated to Canada, never naturalized) → mother (born in Canada) → applicant.

No maternal passages were involved requiring application of the older constitutional rulings under Law 555/1912. Citizenship passed through a straightforward patrilineal line.

Rather than producing a certificate from Canadian authorities attesting non-naturalization, counsel filed the Italian birth extract of the grandfather. That document showed no annotation of any loss of Italian citizenship, which the court accepted as sufficient.

English translation of the relevant passage

The following is a translated excerpt from judgment no. 408/2026:

“The applicant has alleged and documented his line of descent from the ancestor (second-degree ascendant), who, as evidenced by the documentation filed in the proceedings: was born in Italy; emigrated to Canada without ever naturalizing (cf. the birth extract, on file, on which no annotation appears regarding any possible loss of Italian citizenship), where he married.”

The court did not treat the absence of a foreign certificate as a gap in the evidentiary record. It treated the absence of an annotation on the Italian birth extract as positive proof of continuous Italian citizenship. That is a legally meaningful distinction.

“Proof of a negative” and why it matters

Proving that something did not happen, that a person never naturalized, is structurally difficult. There are broadly two evidentiary approaches:

Approach 1 — Positive foreign certification

The applicant obtains a certificate from foreign authorities stating the ancestor does not appear in their naturalization records. The conventional approach, but depends on the availability and cooperation of foreign administrative systems.

Approach 2 — Negative domestic annotation

The applicant relies on the Italian birth record showing no loss of citizenship was ever annotated. This uses the Italian civil registry system, accessible through Italian channels.

 

 

The Campobasso court accepted Approach 2 as sufficient

This is consistent with a fundamental principle of Italian civil procedure: the party asserting a right in court must prove it, but that proof need not be certain or irrefutable. Italian civil law applies the standard of “più probabile che non”, more probable than not, which corresponds to a 51% threshold of evidentiary probability. Applying this standard to the case at hand, the Campobasso court found that the absence of any annotation on the ancestor’s Italian birth extract was sufficient to satisfy that threshold: it was more probable than not that the ancestor had never naturalized. The birth extract, as filed, was treated as reaching the required 51% level of proof, making the non-naturalization more likely than not, even without a formal foreign certificate.

This does not mean every Italian birth extract will automatically suffice. But it establishes that the absence of annotation is a legally recognized form of proof, not merely an argument from silence.

Why this ruling also matters under the Tajani Decree specifically

This ruling is both an evidentiary ruling and a post-reform ruling. The case was filed in November 2025, well after March 27, 2025. Campobasso court therefore applied Law 74/2025 directly. The ruling confirms two things simultaneously:

• Second-generation applicants within the Tajani Decree’s generational limits can still obtain Italian citizenship judicial recognition even when filing after March 27, 2025 , provided the evidentiary record supports the claim.
• The standard for proving ‘exclusive Italian citizenship’ does not automatically require a foreign non-naturalization certificate. Italian civil records may be sufficient when they show no annotation of citizenship loss.

What this ruling does not say

Because the ruling is favorable, it is important to be explicit about its limits:

• It does not hold that an Italian birth extract is always sufficient in every case.
• It does not mean courts will accept this approach universally.
• It does not remove the need for a case-specific evidentiary analysis.
• It does not benefit applicants whose ancestors may have naturalized or whose Italian birth records carry annotations.
• It is a first-instance ruling, not binding precedent.

 

The consular dysfunction dimension

Campobasso court addressed consular waiting times directly. The consulate had communicated that appointments had already been scheduled through 2029 and the court found that such a waiting period constitutes, in substance, a de facto denial of the right to recognition.

The State cannot simultaneously control the only administrative channel for recognition and then use its congestion to delay that recognition indefinitely. A multi-year waiting list is not a reason to abandon a legitimate claim, it is a reason to bring that claim before a court.

 

 

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If you are a second-generation descendant of an Italian-born ancestor who emigrated abroad without naturalizing, this ruling may be relevant to your situation.