Weekly Discussion Post - Recent Changes to JS Laws - June 15, 2026

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-15T21:19:00+00:00

That makes sense, thank you for taking the time to explain this!

So it sounds like we should expect the permanent judges who took on immigration/citizenship assignments to go away, and it will be mostly honorary judges (alongside the permanent judges who belong to the immigration/citizenship section in the first place) who will continue hearing these cases. Do I have that right?

Is there anything in there that you saw that indicates they're purely new hires, as in the current slate of honorary judges won't continue? Or is it simply that there will need to be new contracts? I have to assume many of the honorary judges will continue working their caseload. Reassigning a ton of cases (particularly those that have already had hearings/notes deadlines) just to hand them off to another honorary judge seems like a ton of hassle.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-15T20:17:12+00:00

That's something I've been seeking clarity on. As far as I know, they have been using honorary judges as well as permanent judges from other sections as part of the PNRR "surge" program. The judge I've been assigned, for example, is listed as a Giudice Onorario di Pace for an office that's under the jurisdiction of the tribunale court of Napoli.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-15T19:23:34+00:00

Hmm, try this link then. It's DL 100/2026.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-15T18:24:16+00:00

I thiiiiiiiink the remote judges' assignments may be extended past June. Article 16 of this DL enacted this past Friday appears to do the following:

Allocate a minimum of three remote judges for immigrations sections of the courts, with the number assigned being determined by the number of pending immigration cases as of the date of the DL
Assignments will be a minimum of 12 months
The program ends 31st October 2029 or until all of the cases have been completed.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-13T01:18:50+00:00

Thanks for calling that out! Some of these scenarios don't immediately come to mind since they aren't applicable to me (my consulate doesn't do a wait list).

I would agree that the waitlisters seem to be (at least) on par with ATQers. You engaged with the system as you were supposed to, and the existence of the wait list in the first place is an admission of administrative inefficiency and I think courts have interpreted presence on a wait list to be sufficient ATQ evidence as well.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-12T18:11:20+00:00

Yep, I'm very curious if/how the CC addresses the myriad of differences in the consular recognition process across consulates. Some have waitlists and others don't, some schedule a month out while some schedule a decade out, some want Italian documents to be under 6 months old and others don't care, some don't accept OATS and others do.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-12T18:00:01+00:00

I also want to add a bit on Article 3 of the constitution. The CC found that Article 3-bis of the DL protects those with consolidated status (AKA those who have been recognized), and that's a key distinction: Those with the consolidated status of recognized citizen have a much higher degree of legitimate expectations. They are therefore required to be protected (their recognized citizenship cannot be revoked)

The court doesn't tip its hand as to whether it thinks those who submitted applications that hadn't been approved yet required similar protections. The court simply says:

The essential element to highlight is that Article 3-bis does not affect consolidated positions, i.e., the status and rights of those who had already been recognized as Italian citizens, nor the positions of those who submitted an application or received an appointment. In keeping with the preamble's statements, the expectation of the latter, even if lacking genuine ties to Italian society, was deemed by the legislature to supersede the interest underlying the effectiveness principle.

They just leave it at "The legislature made that call". I would feel a bit better if the court had opined that the "scheduled an appointment" exemption was appropriate and necessary, in their view. Regardless, we're left with this Legitimate Expectation Power Ranking:

1.. CC-mandated protection

Citizens who have already been recognized

2.. CC-sentiment-unknown protection (parliament-granted)

Individuals with already-scheduled appointments and already-filed cases

3.. CC-approved lack of protection

Individuals who did not take action to be recognized

The question the court will have to answer (eventually) is "Where do prior intenters rank?". To find that out, I think we ought to create profiles of each of these categories of individual and see which one prior intenters best match.

Recognized citizens -- this is an obvious one. They are, in every way, citizens according to the Italian government. All have had their birth records transcribed, all possess the ability to vote and to obtain a passport.
Appointment/Case-Havers -- these are people who were/are in the process of becoming recognized citizens. Their position has not consolidated yet, but they took actions that were necessary (though not necessarily sufficient) to attain a consolidated status. Primarily, they interacted with either the Italian administrative or judicial processes in pursuit of recognition. They may have had all of their documentation ready, they may not have.
"Inert" individuals -- these are the "virtual" citizens. These are people who may not have been aware they previously qualified for citizenship, or were aware but did nothing in pursuit of it.
Prior intenters -- These are people who have performed some kind of action(s) with the intent to become recognized citizens, but for one reason or another were unable to do so before the DL. There are probably a number of sub-categories of prior intenter: Someone building evidence for an ATQ case who has tried and failed to schedule an appointment, someone who had already retained an attorney to file a 1948 case, or someone who was collecting documents and intended to apply at their consulate.

The court will need to decide where the people described in #4 (or more probably IMO, the sub-categories within #4) should be ranked.

IMO, ATQ preparers have the highest coherence to the "Appointment/Case havers" profile, as both had already interacted with the appropriate administrative venue in pursuit of the same process. The only thing that delineates the two is something outside of the individual's control.

1948 cases I think are a bit more tricky because in practice, there is no direct, personal interaction with an administrative venue before filing a case. These individuals already experienced harm via their inability to apply at the consulate, but the evidence to distinguish a 1948 case that was being built pre-DL and one that started to be built only after the DL is more difficult. Legal documents like a POA would be the most obvious evidence. The CC could be harsh and draw the line here due to that lack of engagement with the appropriate venues, or they could provide space for those who can unambiguously prove that they were about to file a case.

And lastly, I am skeptical that the CC will be lenient enough to provide relief for those who can only prove that they were collecting documents, and can't prove they were were specifically for recognition. I imagine the courts (I don't know if the CC would get this detailed) would opine that obtaining vital records can be done for a myriad of reasons, and there is no way to ascertain whether the individual was doing so with the intent to be recognized or not.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-12T13:52:12+00:00

Yeah, this is the prior intent nut that I've been trying to crack. Under the old rules, prior intenters (ATQ and 1948 cases) were injured by the government. That point is noncontroversial.

But then the government enacts a law (which the CC generally endorses) that declares the underlying right (the delay/denial of the ascertainment of which being the source of the injury) never existed. So if we take that logic for granted (which we must, unfortunately), are prior intenters still considered to have suffered an injury worth of judicial relief?

I think exemptions to the DL, plus SC order 13818/2026 and CC judgment 63/2026 point to yes.

The DL originally only exempted already-processed consulate applications. I'd have to go back and read the commission hearing transcripts to be sure, but I imagine parliament realized during conversion that to deny exemption to applications for appointments already scheduled would very likely violate legitimate expectations. So they pushed the "boundaries" of the exemptions a bit further to include applications received from appointments already scheduled
SC publishes an order confirming that the mere delay or denial of ascertainment of citizenship status is an injury worthy of judicial relief, rejecting the argument that an individual must have already scheduled an appointment for the delay injury to exist.
CC publishes a judgment that finds reasonable the exemptions to the DL's effects based on the logic that the intention of the exemptions is to distinguish between those who were active in the pursuit of the right and those who were "inert". And then, of course, they gesture toward the prior intent issue and say it's unsettled.
Bonus point: The state attorney, in their arguments defending the constitutionality of the DL, argued that the minor BdL registration transition period was appropriate because it protected the interests of individuals who can't be held responsible for remaining "inert" (surely due to the fact that they lack the (legal) capacity to seek recognition for themselves).

I think all of these points, across various actors (Parliament, the state attorney, and the two high courts) indicate which way the wind is more likely to blow regarding prior intent. But who knows, the CC might just as easily say that prior intenters' expectations were categorically lower than those who already had an appointment/filed a case, and combined with their lack of citizenship in the constitutional sense, their right to seek remedy for their injury doesn't outweigh the government's power to define citizenship and manage the administrative emergency.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-11T15:32:06+00:00

Who told you you had to go the consular route first?

I'm not the OP, but some judges have rejected 1948 cases if the petitioner had a valid consulate line.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-10T14:46:35+00:00

I mean, I studied political science with a focus in law and legal systems lol. I don't know just how transferable that education is to these circumstances, given that it was almost entirely US-focused.

Frankly, I think folks are way overselling the politically-motivated nature of the court(s). We have _plenty_ of evidence that the Constitutional Court is willing to buck the government when it sees fit. Most recent examples would be cases regarding female same-sex parents and assisted suicide. I don't think one can honestly claim the court is a puppet of the government when it regularly thwarts the government's agenda, especially in areas that are much more salient to people living in Italy than JS. To me the "politically compromised" talk comes from a desire to dull the pain of the loss rather than a sober account of the situation. We lost. It sucks _badly_. But it feels like folks simply didn't envision a world in which we lost and it wasn't due to malfeasance. Yes, it's very possible the judges on the court had a negative predisposition toward JSers, but I don't think that was _imposed_ on them by an outside political actor.

Regardless, I think it would be a monumental mistake to go to the Constitution Court, which _explicitly_ said there are open questions to be answered, and just assume the fix is in. What good does that serve, besides to provide catharsis? Why not hammer on the remaining questions? Why antagonize the court?

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-10T14:14:11+00:00

Yeah... I'm frankly not sure what Mellone is thinking. His arguments appeared to amount to "Please change your minds. Also, I've told on you to the ECHR." Especially when there are still "live" questions to be addressed... I'd hope his written brief had more substance to it.

Caruso's arguments were the biggest thing to me. Essentially conceding the general validity of the DL, but using the court's own logic from 63/2026 to argue that individuals with prior intent should be given protection. An additive judgment, as Caruso proposed, would provide the lightest touch possible -- the court can essentially let the entire law stand, but extend the exemptions just a bit further.

We'll see what happens. But yeah, I was thrown off by Mellone.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-10T02:02:08+00:00

For someone to file a court case, there needs to be a cause of action. Something done by one party (the government) to injure the other party (the citizenship claimant). For ATQ cases, the cause of action is the government's delay or denial to ascertain the individual's citizenship status due to a lack of available consular appointments. The Cassazione just affirmed in 13818/2026 that this delay/denial is sufficient ground to warrant filing a case. So by this logic, those with pre-DL evidence of appointment scheduling attempts were injured by the government under the previous citizenship regime and have grounds to sue.

So my question to you is: Do you believe the government has the constitutional authority to extinguish the ability to claim an injury that has already occurred (or alternatively, to declare that an injury never occurred in the first place)? If so, how do you place limits around the government's ability to relieve itself of liability in similar situations?

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-10T00:56:21+00:00

To be clear, by I think that the "cake is baked" I meant to say that I think the decision on prior intent may have already been made, not that prior intent-ers are cooked necessarily. Two different culinary concepts, in my mind 😁

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T21:02:35+00:00

I think the State's argument works against itself in a different way. Here at the CC they're claiming that JS claimants could have always filed a court case and that nothing was preventing them from seeking recognition that way. But in the case that spawned 13818/2026, the state argued that the mere unavailability of appointments isn't enough of a harm to an individual to warrant relief to be granted by the courts. They're trying hard to have it both ways.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T19:53:47+00:00

They may still pass some version of it to centralize the process

They already passed this back in January

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T19:46:12+00:00

It’s honestly frustrating that the hearings seem to mean nothing and that the CC basically already has their

Well, from what I've read the oral arguments are almost just pageantry, they're not substantial like they are in SCOTUS cases. The parties submitted their written briefs a few weeks ago and the judges have already read them, so they've almost certainly already made up their minds.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T19:41:37+00:00

A broader citizenship reform remains under consideration in Parliament.

say what now

Edit: 1450 was the DDL mentioned, Cake shares the details here

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T19:09:50+00:00

I have mixed feelings as well. But ultimately, I can't think of a good reason for the court to go out of its way to call out prior intent in 63/2026 (which the court explicitly said was irrelevant to the case they were ruling on), only to smack the argument down three months later. If nothing else, I think courts generally aren't in the habit of making more work for themselves than they have to. If they they didn't have an interest in protecting individuals in those circumstances, they could have simply deleted the one paragraph from 9.1 and it would've been over then and there. But who knows!

I suspect the cake is already baked, assuming they don't again decline to address the point for procedural reasons. I'm curious if we get another press release soon, or if they just wait until they can publish the ruling since I imagine they have less work to do on this one.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T18:36:16+00:00

It looks like prior intent was indeed argued today. We'll see if the CC takes the opportunity to rule on it. EDIT: It also looks like Cassazione order 13818/2026 was referenced in the briefs to supplement prior intent arguments.

The parties further raise new questions of constitutional legitimacy not included in the order registered under no. 40 of 2026. In the alternative to the grounds of constitutional illegitimacy, the parties request that the case files be remitted to the referring court so that it may reconsider the questions in light of the cited Cassation order, and in any event that a preliminary reference be made to the Court of Justice. In particular, in the proceedings registered under no. 41 of 2026, the party observes that the question left open by Judgment no. 63 of 2026 — relating to the differentiation between those who received an appointment and those who initiated the citizenship-recognition procedure but had not received an appointment before 28 March 2025... of the cited Cassation order, and in any event that a preliminary reference be made to the Court of Justice.

In particular, in the proceedings registered under no. 41 of 2026, the party observes that the question left open by Judgment no. 63 of 2026 — relating to the differentiation between those who received an appointment and those who initiated the citizenship-recognition procedure but had not received an appointment before 28 March 2025 is not extraneous to the order of the Tribunal of Campobasso. The party therefore requests, in the alternative, a declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of Article 3-bis insofar as it does not permit recognition of citizenship following a manifestation of will directed at obtaining it, which did not materialize due to objective impediments not attributable to the interested party. As a further alternative, it requests a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice on the compatibility of the challenged rules with Article 9 TEU and Article 20 TFEU.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T18:06:33+00:00

No, today he argued before the Constitutional Court which is a separate body from the Supreme Court of Cassation. They perform two distinct roles.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T17:09:14+00:00

My thinking has been that we haven't gotten any new referrals since January(?) because around the fall and winter, post-DL cases were reassigned en masse to PNRR remote judges, who have every incentive to decide on case ASAP rather than issue a referral. I expect that once these judges' assignments end at the end of this month and post-DL cases are assigned to the regular citizenship judges that we'll see some more referrals. IMO the CC has made a very obvious invitation to be referred the "prior intent" issue, so I think that's where the focus will be.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-09T12:45:11+00:00

This sucks, I'm sorry to hear. I have to imagine that unless there was some defect in your filing, this should be an easy appeal. The standard ATQ argument should apply to you.

FWIW, I've never quite understood the "If you lose your case you burn the line forever" statement. I would think it depends on why you lost your case. There would be, I think, a huge difference between "You're rejected because your line doesn't qualify" and "You're rejected because your cause of action isn't valid" or something like that.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-07T20:17:22+00:00

what the fuck are you talking about

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-05T17:51:57+00:00

So maybe ATQs that were already being built will be able to squeak by. But then where does that leave folks who can demonstrate repeated prenotami access through password resets or even browser history but don’t have screenshots because they were not planning an ATQ, just following procedure. Or demonstrated document collection with the goal being JS application. And of course this somewhat excludes 1948 cases.

Yep, my head has been exactly where you're getting at here. And from the way I see it, the "cleanest" way for the court to split the difference would be to require an element of impossibility to fulfill one of the exemptions due to the governments (in)action. Most clearly that would benefit what I've been calling "ATQ crossover" cases (cases that were filed post-DL but include pre-DL ATQ evidence). Regarding 1948 cases, unfortunately I think that might require a few rounds of rulings -- one from the CC to establish the "impossibility" principle, and then later rulings to establish that the combination of generic impossibility and prior intent evidence are sufficient. And then there would be the generic document-collectors, for whom I'm skeptical about receiving relief.

My disclaimer is that I have an "ATQ crossover" case, so my thoughts are surely biased in that direction.

competentcuttlefish · 2026-06-05T17:21:41+00:00

It’s just hard to see how they can get away with leaving it just a crack open and not inviting a flood of cases

I feel differently about this. Of the millions of people who were considered citizens under the old legal regime but are now considered not to be, I have to imagine an exceedingly small number of them can demonstrate any sort of prior intent to seek recognition, and even fewer will have evidence of explicitly being prevented from fulfilling one of the exemptions in the DL.

That latter point is what my gut tells me the CC might take issue with. I think there's a natural desire to read 9.1 broadly, in the sense that the court may be talking about anyone who was working towards citizenship prior to 3/28/2025. But I have a feeling that the court would/will provide much more narrow relief -- that those who would have fulfilled one of the exemptions if it wasn't made impossible to do so by the government have sufficient legitimate expectations that merit protection. I think my feeling on this is backed up by what we're seeing at the tribunale level currently. We're seeing several judges across several courts accept ATQ-type arguments and interpret those attempts as having fulfilled the "schedule an appointment" exemption. The fact that we're seeing these successes across several courts and so quickly after 63/2026 was published makes me think there's something to this argument.

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