Venice Court Recognizes Italian Citizenship Through Grandfather

The Tribunale di Venezia recognized the right to Italian citizenship for a family descended from an Italian immigrant, in a decision published on July 2, 2026. Ruling no. 16180/2026 confirms that judicial actions filed before the Decreto Tajani took effect continue to be judged by previous rules, which are more favorable to descendants of Italians.

What the Venice Court Decided

According to the text of the decision published by Diritto Pratico, ruling no. 16180/2026 judged an action (R.G. 22148/2024) filed in 2024, approximately 30 months before the decision was published. The Ministero dell'Interno, the defendant in the case, was properly notified but did not appear in court, being declared revel (in default) — a common situation in this type of action, where the Italian State is a formal party but frequently does not contest the merits.

The judge responsible for the case granted the plaintiffs' request, recognizing the status of Italian citizens by descent (iure sanguinis) from the grandfather, who was born in Italy and emigrated to Brazil. A central point of the decision was proof that the ancestor died without ever having become a Brazilian citizen or formally renounced Italian citizenship — an essential requirement to keep the chain of transmission intact through to the plaintiff descendants.

Why the Case Was Judged in Venice, Not Rome

Until a few years ago, practically all Italian citizenship actions filed by residents abroad were concentrated in the Tribunale di Roma. This scenario changed with Law 206/2021, which from June 22, 2022 established a new rule of territorial jurisdiction: such proceedings began to be distributed according to the municipality where the Italian ancestor was born, no longer centralized in the capital.

Because the plaintiff family's grandfather was born in a municipality in the province of Veneza, jurisdiction to judge the case fell to the immigration-specialized section of the Tribunale di Venezia. This change explains the growing decentralization of citizenship judgments observed in recent years, with regional courts assuming cases that would previously have been automatically sent to Rome. Those intending to pursue the judicial route for Italian citizenship must today consider which court will have jurisdiction over their specific case.

Which Law Was Applied: Before the Decreto Tajani

One of the most relevant aspects of the ruling is the explicit statement that the case was judged based on Law 91/1992 in its version prior to the amendments brought by Law 74/2025, which converted Decree-Law 36/2025 — known as Decreto Tajani.

This occurred because the action was filed in 2024, before the new rules took effect, which significantly restricted recognition of citizenship to descendants of Italians. In practice, the decision confirms that judicial proceedings already filed before the legislative change continue to be processed and judged under the old rules — without the generational limits that the Decreto Tajani imposed for subsequent recognitions.

Protection of proceedings already filed before the Decreto Tajani took effect is provided for in the new law itself. A different question, still under debate in the Italian judiciary — including in the Sezioni Unite of the Corte di Cassazione — is whether the decree can apply retroactively to the very birth of the applicants, extinguishing a citizenship right that, theoretically, would have existed since then for those who are not the child or grandchild of an Italian.

The Legal History Cited in the Decision

To support the recognition, the judge drew on a historical line of norms and precedents that sustains the right of blood in Italian legislation. The decision cites the Civil Code of the Kingdom of Italy of 1865 and Law 555/1912, norms that established that the child of an Italian father was an Italian citizen, regardless of birthplace — a principle that forms the basis of citizenship transmission by descent to this day.

The ruling also mentions two historical decisions of the Corte Costituzionale: no. 87/1975 and no. 30/1983. The first declared unconstitutional the rule that made an Italian woman lose her citizenship upon marrying a foreigner; the second declared unconstitutional the transmission exclusively through the paternal line, now allowing transmission of citizenship through the maternal line as well. Both decisions eliminated discriminatory norms that for decades prevented full recognition of descent through the maternal line. The citation of these decisions reinforces the line of reasoning already consolidated in Italian courts, applied even in long and ancient chains of descent, as is common among Italian-Brazilian families.

What This Means for Brazilian Families

The decision of the Tribunale di Venezia confirms a point of great practical relevance: judicial actions filed before the Decreto Tajani took effect continue to be judged by the more favorable rules of Law 91/1992, without the generational restrictions introduced by the new legislation.

For those who have already filed a judicial action in that period, the case reinforces the importance of:

• Gathering complete and consistent documentation of the entire line of descent;
• Proving that the Italian ancestor never became a Brazilian citizen nor formally renounced Italian citizenship;
• Closely monitoring case processing, as cases like this took approximately 30 months between filing and final ruling.

The case also demonstrates that, despite the more restrictive scenario created by the Decreto Tajani for new requests, the judicial route remains a concrete alternative for those who have already filed an action before the changes. Those following Italian news related to Italian citizenship have seen similar decisions multiply in different regional courts, as the Italian justice system evaluates case by case the effects of the new law on pending proceedings.

The ruling of the Tribunale di Venezia thus adds to a set of recent decisions that help clarify how the Italian judiciary is treating the transition between the old rules and the new ones brought by the Decreto Tajani, a topic that should still generate relevant debate in the coming months — especially regarding the judgment of the Sezioni Unite on the material retroactivity of the decree.

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