Abstract

CASTELLARI, Massimiliano  and  MELLONE, Marco. Italian Citizenship and the Descendants of Italian Citizens Emigrated in Colombia.: Removing a Social Injustice. Estud. Socio-Juríd [online]. 2011, vol.13, n.2, pp.107-139. ISSN 0124-0579.

Law is often the source of social discriminations, but, at the same time, it can be the key to delete these social discriminations. The authors try to give an example of this phenomenon, by analyzing the impact of the Italian citizenship's rules over the descendants of the Italian citizens emigrated abroad and, especially, in South America. Indeed, according to the former Italian law, only fathers could transmit iure sanguinis the citizenship to their children: moreover, women automatically lost the Italian citizenship if they get a foreign citizenship by concluding a marriage with a foreign husband. These rules hardly discriminate the Italian women emigrated abroad and, especially, their descendants who were prevented to get the Italian's citizenship. These discriminatory rules were finally deleted by the Italian Constitutional Court in the Seventies and in the Eighties: however, the effects of those rules still persisted, since the decision of the Constitutional Court could not overcome the temporal limit of the entry into force of the Constitution (01.01.1948) and, therefore, could not "cover" the discriminatory facts occurred before that date. Finally in 2009, the Italian Supreme Court, by extending the effects ratione tempo-ris of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, "reopened the doors" of the Italian citizenship to a huge number of Italian citizenship born from Italian women before the 01.01.1948. Therefore, the authors focus on the social impact of this decision for all the potential Italian citizens living in South America and try to assess its juridical effects over the Italian law.

Keywords : citizenship; emigration; Italy; discrimination.

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