On February 5, 2026, Judge Claudia Carissimi of the Tribunal of Campobasso filed a constitutional referral against D.L. 36/2025 that went significantly further than the earlier Turin challenge. Where Turin invoked three articles of the Constitution, Campobasso raised six, including the explosive Article 22: the express prohibition on deprivation of citizenship for political reasons. Then, even after the Constitutional Court ruled on the Turin referral, Campobasso did not back down.
The Additional Constitutional Arguments
The Campobasso referral shared the core arguments of the Turin referral (Articles 2, 3, and 117 of the Constitution) but added three constitutional provisions that introduce fundamentally different lines of attack:
Article 22: No Deprivation of Citizenship for Political Reasons
Article 22 of the Italian Constitution states: “No one may be deprived, for political reasons, of their legal capacity, citizenship, or name.” This is an absolute prohibition, not subject to balancing tests or legislative discretion.
Judge Carissimi’s analysis focused on the government’s own stated reasons for issuing D.L. 36/2025. The explanatory memorandum accompanying the decree cited concerns about the volume of citizenship applications, the strain on consular and municipal resources, and demographic considerations. The Campobasso judge argued that these are precisely the type of political motivations that Article 22 was designed to prohibit. The provision was inserted into the Constitution by the framers to prevent the state from using citizenship as a tool of political control, and its invocation in this context is unprecedented.
Article 72: Ordinary Legislative Procedure
Article 72 of the Constitution requires that certain categories of legislation, particularly those touching on constitutional matters, be handled through ordinary parliamentary procedure rather than abbreviated processes. Campobasso argued that citizenship, as a fundamental aspect of constitutional identity and personal status, belongs to this category. Reforming the very definition of who is Italian should require full committee review, public hearings, and deliberative debate, not an emergency decree issued overnight.
Article 77: The Emergency Requirement
Article 77 permits the government to issue decree-laws only in cases of “extraordinary necessity and urgency.” The Campobasso judge questioned the factual basis for this claim. Italian citizenship law had been stable in its fundamental structure since 1912 and in its modern form since 1992. The “emergency” was, at most, a policy preference for reform, not the type of urgent crisis the Constitution contemplates. Application backlogs and demographic trends, however real, do not constitute the kind of sudden, unforeseen situation that justifies bypassing Parliament.
Post-March 12: Campobasso Does Not Stand Down
When the Constitutional Court issued its March 12, 2026 press release regarding the Turin referral, declaring the questions “partly unfounded and partly inadmissible,” many commentators assumed that the remaining referrals would be affected. The Campobasso court drew a different conclusion.
On March 16, 2026, just four days after the press release, Judge Rossella Casillo of the Tribunal of Campobasso issued a new decision deferring proceedings and expressly reaffirming the existence of constitutional concerns that, in her assessment, had not been fully addressed by the Court’s ruling on the Turin referral. The judge acknowledged the March 12 outcome but noted that the Campobasso referral raises different constitutional parameters, particularly Articles 22, 72, and 77, that were not part of the Turin filing.
Two additional Campobasso referrals were then published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on March 18, 2026 (1a Serie Speciale n. 11), confirming their transmission to the Constitutional Court.
Why This Matters
The fact that Campobasso judges continued to file and maintain constitutional referrals after the Turin ruling signals two things. First, that the professional judiciary considers the constitutional questions raised by Articles 22, 72, and 77 to be genuinely distinct from those resolved by the Turin ruling. Second, that the March 12 outcome, whatever its full reasoning turns out to be, is not being treated by the lower courts as a definitive endorsement of D.L. 36/2025 in its entirety.
What Happens Next
The Campobasso referrals have been transmitted to the Constitutional Court and await scheduling. Given the Court’s typical pace, hearings could be scheduled for late 2026 or early 2027. In the meantime, the Mantova referral, which raises even more constitutional articles, is set for hearing on June 9, 2026.
The multiplicity of referrals, from different courts, raising different constitutional arguments, and proceeding on independent tracks, underscores the systemic nature of the constitutional concerns surrounding D.L. 36/2025. This is not a single challenge that can be resolved by a single ruling. It is a pattern of judicial concern that spans Italy’s geography and its constitutional framework.
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This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Last updated: March 21, 2026.