Italian Citizenship recognition through Italian Court – necessary steps

Question: My lawyer just filed my 1948 Italian citizenship recognition case with the Italian Court. What happens next?

Answer: After an Italian citizenship 1948 case has been filed with the Court, the Court Clerk’s Office (Ufficio Iscrizione Ruolo Generale) reviews the appeal and the supporting documents and gets back to the applicant’s lawyer as follows:

1. If something needs to be addressed or modified, the Court Clerk will inform the lawyer and request the appropriate corrections. For example, the court might ask for additional filing fees or additional documents regarding the lawyer’s representation authority, or the applicant’s personal information; or
2. If everything is in order, the Court Clerk will register the appeal within the Court system and will assign an index number to the file, Numero di Ruolo Generale (RG).

After that, the Court President will assign the file to a judge who will work on it.

Generally, the turnaround time to complete these activities depends on the Court’s workload. However, usually each case is assigned to a judge within two weeks. After that, a judge can take from one to six months to schedule the hearing based on his/her calendar, which might be 12 to 24 months after the initial appeal filing.

For example, if the judge receives the file in October 2023, it might take until April 2024 to schedule the first hearing. The first hearing usually is scheduled anytime between one and two years after the initial appeal filing. Therefore, in this example, you might be able to discuss the case at your first hearing in Court between October 2024 and October 2025.

In most cases, it is not possible to urge the Judge to speed up the scheduling process or to move up the date of the first hearing.  If you have documented and justified reason (e.g., medical issues or family reasons), your lawyer can file a motion to process your case more urgently. The Judge will decide based on his/her own discretion whether to expedite the process or reject the motion.

Once the Judge has put the first hearing on the Court calendar, the Judge will give your lawyer 40 days to notify the Italian Internal Affairs Ministry, which in turn will have 10 days to to file a brief to declare whether they want be part of the Court process.

During the first hearing, the parties will discuss the Court case before the Judge who will then draft the hearing report. Usually this process is handled remotely without the need for the applicant or his/her lawyer to be present in Court.

After the hearing, there are two possible scenarios:

1. If something needs to be clarified, the Judge will schedule a second hearing for the parties to provide the Court with additional information and/or documents; or
2. If everything is in order, the Judge will declare that the case is ready for him/her to issue a judgment. The Judge’s judgment will either recognize that the applicant is an Italian citizen or will reject the claim. This process generally takes 2-3 weeks after the hearing.

If the appeal is rejected and the applicants does not appeal it, the Judge’s decision becomes final.

If the appeal is successful and the Italian Internal Affair Ministry does not appeal it, the applicant’s lawyer can apply for a Certificate of Non-Appeal (CONA) from the Court, which is generally issued within 5-6 weeks. The CONA gives the applicant the right to register his or her birth record with the Italian Municipality where their Italian ancestor was born (duration of this process is maximum 30 days). This registration completes the Italian citizenship recognition process.

In order to apply for an Italian passport, the applicant is then required to register with the Italian authority who is competent based on his/her hometown where he/she lives. Therefore, if the newly recognized Italian citizen is not an Italian registered resident, the competent authority is the Italian Consulate of the regional area where he/she permanently lives, outside of Italy. Within each Consulate they have a specific register for Italians living overseas, called “Anagrafe Italiani Residenti all’Estero” or “AIRE”. If he/she is registered as an Italian resident, he/she can apply for the passport through the Italian Immigration office, at the local police headquarter (called “Questura”) competent based on the Municipality where he/she is registered as a resident.

On average, the timing for the Italian Consulate to issue the passport is significantly longer than the timing through the local Italian Questura.

Related information:

• Italian Citizenship Screening Form
• Italian residence registration