Naples Ruling, May 2026: Prenot@mi Attempts and Emails from August 2024 Satisfy the Art. 3-bis Deadline – But the Legal Landscape Remains Wide Open
Tribunals across Italy are reaching opposite conclusions on the same legal questions. Some are granting. Some are rejecting outright. Many are suspending and waiting. Two decisions from courts above this one — the Sezioni Unite of the Corte di Cassazione and a new session of the Corte Costituzionale scheduled for June 9 — will likely reshape everything that’s currently happening at the merits level.
What follows is analysis of a favorable outcome published today..
What the May 18th 2026 Naples Ruling Decided
A Naples specialized immigration section issued on May 18th a ruling granting recognition of Italian citizenship to a family of US-based petitioners. The case was filed well after the March 2025 reform took effect. The genealogical line ran to the fourth generation — far beyond the two-generation limit established by Art. 3-bis — and none of the standard carve-out exceptions applied (no Italian-only-citizen grandparent, no two-year Italian residency of a parent).
Before reading further: this is not a settled trend.
This landmark ruling was obtained by ILF Law Firm (Florence), with Avv. Michele Ambrogio serving as dominus and lead attorney of record. I contributed to the defense strategy in an advisory capacity. All credit for the brilliant conduct of the proceedings belongs to him and his firm.
Download the Full Ruling & Lead Counsel Resource
The complete official text of the Naples Court Ruling has been made available by the lead defense firm. If you would like to download the full PDF judgment for your review, please click the button below to retrieve it directly from their site:
The petitioners’ key evidence: documented attempts on the Prenot@mi portal at their relevant Italian consulate in the United States, followed by emails explicitly requesting appointments. All of this was sent in August 2024 — more than seven months before the March 27, 2025 deadline.
Under the plain text of the new law, this case should have been barred.
The operative paragraph of the ruling:
“Avendo i ricorrenti fornito prova di aver effettuato svariati tentativi di prenotazione tramite il Portale Prenot@mi del Consolato, seguiti dall’invio di altrettante e-mail, con richieste di appuntamento, tutte inoltrate in data 02.08.2024 — quindi, prima della scadenza temporale imposta dall’art. 3-bis lettera a) — hanno diritto al riconoscimento della cittadinanza italiana, in quanto discendenti diretti dell’avo cittadino italiano, come risulta dai documenti allegati che ne attestano il legame di sangue e che n├® l’avo n├® tantomeno i discendenti hanno mai rinunciato alla cittadinanza italiana, interrompendo la catena di trasmissione della cittadinanza.”
[English translation]
“Having the petitioners provided proof of having made numerous booking attempts via the Prenot@mi portal of their consulate, followed by the sending of an equal number of emails requesting appointments, all submitted on August 2, 2024 — therefore, before the deadline imposed by Art. 3-bis letter a) — they are entitled to recognition of Italian citizenship, as direct descendants of an Italian citizen ancestor, as shown by the attached documents attesting to the bloodline, and given that neither the ancestor nor the descendants ever renounced Italian citizenship, thereby interrupting the chain of transmission.”
The analytical thread of the decision is: documented initiation of the consular process = legally sufficient. Administrative dysfunction = not chargeable to the petitioner.
The Higher-Court Architecture Supporting This Reasoning
These outcomes connect to two higher-court positions from the past month.
The Corte Costituzionale, in Sentenza 63/2026 (deposited April 30), upheld the reform’s general framework. But it explicitly declined to rule on one specific question, leaving it “impregiudicata”:
“Resta impregiudicata, peraltro (in quanto estranea al giudizio a quo e dunque non sollevata dal rimettente), la questione relativa alla differenziazione tra chi ha ricevuto l’appuntamento e chi ha avviato la procedura di riconoscimento della cittadinanza, ma non ha ricevuto l’appuntamento entro le 23:59 del 27 marzo 2025.”
[English translation] > “The question remains unresolved — as it was extraneous to the referring court’s proceedings and therefore not raised — regarding the differentiation between those who received an appointment and those who initiated the recognition procedure but did not receive an appointment by 23:59 on March 27, 2025.”
The Constitutional Court drew one line. It did not draw the next one. Naples is drawing it at the merits level, for now.
On May 12, 2026, the Corte di Cassazione (First Civil Section, Ord. 13818/2026) added the procedural predicate:
“sussiste l’interesse ad agire non solo in caso di diniego o di ritardo nel riconoscimento di tale status, ma anche nell’ipotesi in cui si verifichino impedimenti, difficolt├á o lungaggini che non consentono neppure la presentazione della relativa richiesta all’Amministrazione a ci├▓ deputata, poich├® tale situazione genera incertezza sullo status e sui connessi diritti e prerogative del titolare.”
[English translation] > “Standing to sue exists not only in cases of formal denial or delay, but also when impediments, difficulties, or prolonged obstacles prevent even the submission of the request to the competent Administration, since such a situation generates uncertainty over the person’s status and related rights and prerogatives.”
Why the Overall Picture Remains Genuinely Uncertain
The favourable Naples ruling and supportive language from both the Cassazione and the Consulta do not add up to a consolidated trend. They add up to a developing argument in a contested legal landscape.
Tribunals in Brescia and Ancona have been rejecting post-decree cases on the merits without waiting for higher-court guidance. Courts in Rome, Venice, and Caltanissetta have been suspending proceedings entirely — some explicitly citing the upcoming Sezioni Unite decision, others waiting on the June 9 Constitutional Court session. I will write more about them in my next blog posts.
Genova Confirms the National Suspension Pattern — Also Today, May 18th
Also issued today, May 18, 2026, is a significant order from the Tribunale Ordinario di Genova, Sezione XI Civile, which explicitly chose to suspend its own proceedings and schedule a new hearing for June 19, 2026 — precisely to await the outcomes from the two highest courts.
The Genova order is noteworthy for several reasons:
First, it confirms that the June 9 Constitutional Court session carries a specific question about the Prenot@mi gap — not just a general review of the reform. The Genova judge expressly references the pending referral from the Tribunale di Mantova (October 24, 2025, hearing calendared for June 9, 2026) and the Tribunale di Campobasso (February 2026, hearing not yet scheduled), both of which raised the precise question left open by Sentenza 63 at paragraph 9.1:
“Resta impregiudicata […] la questione relativa alla differenziazione tra chi ha ricevuto l’appuntamento e chi ha avviato la procedura di riconoscimento della cittadinanza, ma non ha ricevuto l’appuntamento entro le 23:59 del 27 marzo 2025.”
Second, the Genova order adds an element no other court has stated this clearly: the judge acknowledges that the petitioner in this specific case — unlike many others — has produced documentation of consular appointment attempts, even if “not absolute nor incontrovertible.” This is exactly the factual predicate that the Naples court acted on. Genova is not deciding yet, but it is explicitly flagging the evidentiary distinction.
Third, there is a hard deadline: the Genova judge notes the PNRR constraint requiring the court to issue its decision by June 30, 2026, regardless of whether the higher-court rulings have been published by then.
The operative language of the Genova order:
“Ritenuto che sia, comunque, opportuno disporre un rinvio del procedimento per attendere […] l’eventuale deposito della sentenza della Corte di Cassazione a Sezioni Unite, all’esito dell’udienza del 14.4.2026 nonché della eventuale decisione (o comunicato stampa) della Corte costituzionale, all’esito dell’udienza del 9.6.2026. In particolare, potrebbe essere rilevante valutare quanto le due Corti potrebbero affermare in relazione alla posizione di chi abbia inutilmente tentato di ottenere un appuntamento presso il Consolato territorialmente competente.”
[English translation]
“It is considered appropriate to postpone the proceedings in order to await […] the possible publication of the ruling of the Sezioni Unite of the Court of Cassazione, following the oral argument of April 14, 2026, as well as any decision (or press release) of the Constitutional Court, following the hearing of June 9, 2026. In particular, it may be relevant to assess what the two Courts may affirm regarding the position of those who unsuccessfully attempted to obtain an appointment at the territorially competent Consulate.”
This is a national pattern, not an isolated choice. And June 9 has just become the date that every court in Italy is watching.
Those two upcoming decisions are the ones that matter most right now:
The June 9 Corte Costituzionale session may revisit or expand on the question explicitly left open in Sentenza 63 — the gap between “appointment received” and “process initiated but appointment never given.”
The Sezioni Unite of the Cassazione have two distinct referrals pending. The first, Ord. 17973/2024 (filed June 2024), addresses the “Minor Issue”: whether a child who held dual citizenship at birth retains Italian citizenship when a parent naturalizes during their minority — a question under Arts. 7 and 12 of the 1912 citizenship law that has paralyzed consular processing nationwide. The SSUU heard oral argument on April 14; no ruling has been published yet. The second, Ord. 20122/2025 (First Civil Section, July 2025), remitted to the SSUU the question of how Art. 3-bis applies — specifically noting that the underlying facts in that case “are situated temporally before the reform.”
Neither referral asks the SSUU directly to weigh Prenot@mi screenshots as evidence. But both touch foundational questions whose resolution will cascade downward: once the SSUU defines when Art. 3-bis applies and what citizenship rights survived the reform cutoff, every lower court’s evidentiary calculus on documented consular attempts will follow from those answers. Their decisions will bind every lower court in Italy.
Until both of those are published, every favorable merits ruling — including the Naples decision analyzed here — represents one court’s reading of an unresolved question, not settled law. The Naples reasoning is legally coherent and grounded in the gap the Consulta left open. It is also subject to being overtaken by events in the next few weeks.
Sources: Naples specialized immigration section ruling, May 18th, 2026; Trib. Genova, Sez. XI Civile, suspension order, May 18, 2026; Cass. Civ. I Sez., Ord. 13818/2026, published May 12, 2026; Corte Cost., Sent. 63/2026, deposited April 30, 2026.
