The Tajani Law in Agony: Campobasso Accelerates the Constitutional Collapse

The so-called Tajani Law appears to have entered its definitive terminal phase. Two new rulings issued by the Court of Campobasso, delivered almost simultaneously on 5 and 6 February, have referred further questions of constitutional illegitimacy to the Italian Constitutional Court, significantly intensifying judicial pressure upon a legislative framework that, from its very inception, was born under suspicion.

Already in my article of 2 August 2025 for ABC Mundial, commenting on Judgment no. 142/2025 of the Italian Constitutional Court of 31 July — which forcefully reaffirmed that the constitutive element of the Italian status civitatis lies in being born of an Italian citizen — I did not hesitate to state that the Tajani Law was already “in check.” Although that decision did not directly concern the decree bearing the name of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, the legal landscape was unmistakable: the Tajani architecture rested upon decidedly fragile foundations.

The first decisive blow was struck by Order no. 167 of the Turin Tribunal, dated 25 June 2025. A pronouncement of extraordinary argumentative sophistication, it challenged the legality of the Tajani Decree not only through the lens of domestic constitutional law, but — above all — from the standpoint of European Union law, the most solid bulwark against any attempt at retroactive deprivation.

Turin recalled several fundamental principles:

-.The nationality of a Member State automatically confers the status of citizen of the Union (Article 20 TFEU).

-. Any national measure affecting citizenship must comply with EU law.

-.The automatic loss of citizenship, absent procedural safeguards, violates the principle of proportionality, as consistently affirmed by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

-. Persons born abroad to an Italian ascendant were Italian citizens ab origine, and whether or not they had initiated judicial proceedings for formal recognition constitutes a purely factual circumstance, irrelevant to the existence of the right.

The trajectory was thus clearly delineated. The second constitutional challenge emerged from the Mantua Tribunal on 24 October 2025, confirming the Turin principles and reinforcing a scenario increasingly resembling a double legal checkmate.

11 March has been set as the starting date of the constitutional proceedings for the Turin case. Yet the offensive did not cease. Campobasso has now entered the arena with unmistakable force.

A Law Born Under Siege, Now in Full Constitutional Agony

What will happen next? Formally, the Constitutional Court may decide to consolidate all these questions into a single proceeding, delaying by several months what already appears to be an announced demise. Yet the substance remains unchanged: the Tajani Law, questioned from the outset, has now entered a phase of profound constitutional agony.

An additional development of enormous relevance is imminent: the Italian Court of Cassation (Sezioni Unite) has scheduled a hearing for 14 April 2026. The Court will address the so-called “minor issue” — namely, whether cohabiting minor children lose Italian citizenship when their parents naturalise abroad — and, most likely, will also confront the question of Tajani retroactivity, given the urgent need to unify jurisprudential criteria.

Meanwhile, the decisive question is political: what will the Italian Government do, driven by an ideological conviction of citizenship grounded in an “effective link” with Italy, in order to preserve the Tajani Law — or at least its doctrinal edifice?

Campobasso: The Challenge Becomes More Severe

The Campobasso cases are particularly significant because they concern actions initiated after the conversion of Decree-Law 36 into Law no. 74. This grants the constitutional referrals absolute pertinence: there can be no doubt that the Tajani Law is the applicable norm in the concrete cases, an element of fundamental importance in the Constitutional Court’s assessment.

The rulings follow the conceptual line traced by Turin and challenge the legislation for violation of:

-.Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution (reasonableness, equality, legitimate expectation);

-.Article 22 (prohibition of deprivation of citizenship for political reasons);

-.Article 117, in connection with Articles 9 TEU and 20 TFEU.

Among the most striking passages, Campobasso affirms:

“The mass revocation of citizen status appears manifestly disproportionate in relation to the declared objectives of managing the administrative and judicial burden, objectives which could have been pursued through temporary or transitional measures, pending an organic reform.”

And further:

“The legislation introduces differential treatment among subjects in homogeneous conditions, making recognition depend upon arbitrary elements such as the date of filing the application.”

The Tribunal underscores that the actual possibility of timely submission depends on bureaucratic and economic factors external to the will of the individual, transforming the temporal distinction into an inequality devoid of rational justification and, ultimately, into indirect discrimination against those lacking the financial means to access judicial authorities promptly.

Article 22: Citizenship Cannot Be Revoked for Political Reasons

Campobasso develops a profound constitutional argument regarding Article 22, maintaining that it does not merely prohibit discrimination based on individual political opinions, but rather excludes any deprivation of status civitatis grounded in discretionary decisions of a political nature.

The reasons invoked by the decree — the growth of Italians abroad, the alleged absence of effective ties, cultural and identity homogeneity, national security — constitute genuine “political motives” in the constitutional sense, rooted in general assessments of expediency rather than in voluntary conduct attributable to the individuals concerned.

The conclusion is devastating:

“The measure realises precisely that form of arbitrary deprivation of citizenship which Article 22 intends to exclude radically.”

Decree-Law as Abuse: Violation of Articles 72 and 77

Finally, Campobasso attacks the procedural core: citizenship is not a mere individual status, but a constitutive element of the State and a prerequisite for the exercise of political rights, particularly the right to vote.

A retroactive reform excluding previously entitled subjects entails an indirect alteration of the electoral body.

“A change of such magnitude cannot be adopted through an exceptional instrument such as a decree-law, but rather requires the ordinary parliamentary legislative procedure.”

Moreover, the requirements of extraordinary necessity and urgency are entirely absent: the phenomena invoked by the Government have been known for decades and do not constitute an unforeseeable emergency.

An Announced Death and an Inevitable Cost

In conclusion, one cannot but return to the same unavoidable question: what will the Italian Government do now?

The judicial path is already clear, solid, and unassailable, and the margin for political manoeuvre narrows inexorably with each new ruling.

Inaction — before or after a highly plausible declaration of unconstitutionality — would not be a mere strategic pause, but the prelude to a perfectly foreseeable phenomenon: an avalanche of judicial claims brought by the “already Italians” artificially blocked by a restrictive norm.

Yet neither would a governmental “corrective” intervention — an emergency adjustment or temporary window for the exercise of the right — resolve the dilemma. On the contrary, it would amount to a tacit confession of political defeat and would confront the very obstacle it sought to avoid: the chronic insufficiency of the administration to manage the problem.

Ultimately, as I have maintained from the outset, the Tajani Law is not simply a technical norm: it is a political decision draped in legal garments. And ill-conceived political decisions invariably carry a heavy price — one that, in this case, will fall not only upon those who promoted it with ideological lightness, but also — and perhaps above all — upon the Italian State itself, compelled to administer the consequences of a law born under the sign of constitutional precariousness.

Pablo Munini – Lawyer (Buenos Aires Bar)