(CNN) — Nearly 500 days since Italy’s millions-strong diaspora was hit by sweeping changes to the country’s citizenship laws in March 2025, the legal battle for Italian citizenship-by-descent continues.
Now, following last week’s surprise referral of the new two-generation limit for scrutiny by the European Court of Justice, the diaspora has won a major legal victory: the overturning of another recent rule that cut the pathway to citizenship for tens of thousands around the world.
The so-called “minor issue,” imposed by the Italian government in October 2024, ruled that descendants born in so-called ius soli countries, which confer citizenship to anyone born there, would lose their Italian citizenship if their parents naturalized in the new country.
It impacted descendants from the Americas, where ius soli (or jus soli) is predominant, especially hard. People in countries such as the US, Brazil, Argentina and Canada had their way to an Italian passport — ranked the fourth most powerful in the world in July’s Henley Passport Index — blocked overnight.
But now, in a historic U-turn, Italy’s supreme court has overturned the “minor issue,” ruling that children who automatically acquired citizenship in the country of their birth did not lose their Italian citizenship when their parents relinquished their own. The landmark judgment, issued on July 27, follows the April 14 hearing in which the Sezioni Unite, the highest rung of the Corte di Cassazione, Italy’s supreme court, heard the cases of three families — one Venezuelan and two American — who had been blocked by the minor issue.
Attorney Monica Restanio, whose arguments in court for the Venezuelan family were responsible for winning the ruling that abolishes the minor issue, said she was thrilled.
“Achieving this result was a personal dream — the kind that drives every lawyer when they decide to defend a right that they believe in deeply,” she told CNN. “Today, what seemed a pipe dream has become a reality.”
She attributed the court’s unexpected about-face to “years of study, research, and tireless work” that had gone into her legal argument, which she presented alongside Leo Piccininni, a professor of law at Rome university.
Gustavo Monasterios, one of the plaintiffs who was appealing the rejection of his claim for citizenship through his Italian grandmother, said that he was “deeply relieved and overjoyed,” and he attributed the win to three women.
“This victory belongs first and foremost to my grandmother, who passed down this heritage to us,” he told CNN.
“It also belongs to my mother, who spent countless hours organizing translations, certifying documents and navigating local authorities.”
Speaking from his home in Switzerland, Monasterios added that Restanio’s “fierce determination and tenacity turned a long, exhausting journey with many setbacks into a final victory.”
A sudden about-face
The minor issue had blocked descendants’ paths to citizenship for some years, with several first-level judges applying it from around 2019, and a previous supreme court judgment confirming it in June 2023, said Marco Mellone, another attorney who represented the two American families in the April 14 hearing.
When the government issued a circular in October 2024, directing consulates to deny citizenship to those affected, “thousands and thousands of families were denied,” he said. “It was a nightmare.”
This hearing was overseen by the Sezioni Unite, or United Sections — the highest tier of the supreme court.
But while the landmark ruling reopens the path to citizenship for thousands worldwide, attaining it may be a different story.
While the lower courts are bound to respect the Cassazione’s decision, government bodies such as consulates do not have to. If the government does not issue a new circular, descendants who are newly eligible will have to file costly lawsuits to get citizenship.
The other major stumbling block is the two-generation limit introduced in March 2025 and the effective ban on dual citizenship for those born abroad, added in May last year. Those changes have now been sent to the European Court of Justice for scrutiny.
However, both Restanio and Mellone said that they believe that those who were previously blocked by the minor issue now have a chance — even if they are barred by the 2025 law — by filing a court case on the grounds that they improperly believed they were not previously eligible.
Within the court’s 28-page ruling was another glimmer of hope for descendants who were disappointed by the 2025 laws.
“The decision reaffirms a fundamental principle: Italian citizenship iure sanguinis is acquired at birth; it constitutes an original status; it is imprescriptible, inalienable, and can be asserted at any time.
Only the holder of the right may, if necessary, renounce it,” said Restanio. That suggests that the supreme court — which did not examine the 2025 law changes in the hearing—might not uphold the government’s sweeping changes, which stripped millions overnight of their status as dormant Italians. Restanio, however, said it would be wrong to predict how they might rule in future hearings.
In the meantime, the diaspora is celebrating the unexpected win.
“I’m ecstatic for all the descendants who now have a path to recognition,” said US-born Joseph Spinelle, who was recognized as an Italian citizen in 2024, and moved to Italy, before the minor issue disqualified other members of his family.
Monasterios said that he was thinking of a phrase his grandmother used to say: “Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca,” or “the early bird catches the worm.”
“Today, our hard work was answered,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.