The Tribunal of Mantova has filed the broadest constitutional challenge yet to D.L. 36/2025, invoking ten articles of the Italian Constitution. Among its arguments: the government imposed a forfeiture deadline that expired before citizens knew it existed, a direct violation of the constitutional right of defense. The hearing is confirmed for June 9, 2026.
Ten Constitutional Articles
Where the Turin referral invoked three articles and Campobasso six, the Mantova referral challenges D.L. 36/2025 under ten separate constitutional provisions. This is the most comprehensive attack on the reform filed to date. The full list of articles invoked:
Constitutional Parameters in the Mantova Referral
Article 1 — Popular sovereignty. What does it mean to strip citizenship from a population that may be numerically comparable to Italy’s resident citizenry?
Article 2 — Inviolable rights. Citizenship as a fundamental expression of personal identity.
Article 3 — Equality and reasonableness. The arbitrary nature of a retroactive mechanism that treats people differently based on an unknowable filing deadline.
Article 22 — Prohibition on deprivation of citizenship for political reasons (shared with the Campobasso referral).
Article 24 — The right of defense. The March 27, 2025 deadline expired before the decree was published; affected citizens had no opportunity to protect their rights.
Articles 56 and 58 — Composition of Parliament. Stripping citizenship from a large diaspora population has implications for Italy’s democratic representation and the composition of the electorate.
Article 72 — Ordinary legislative procedure required for matters of constitutional significance.
Article 77 — Emergency decree requirements; questioning whether genuine urgency existed.
Article 117 — International obligations, including EU Treaty provisions requiring proportionality in citizenship matters.
The Article 24 Argument: No Notice, No Defense
Perhaps the most compelling new argument in the Mantova referral is the invocation of Article 24, the constitutional right of defense and access to justice. The argument is straightforward and powerful:
D.L. 36/2025 created a system in which the only way to preserve citizenship under the prior rules was to have filed an application (or had an appointment confirmed) by 23:59 Rome time on March 27, 2025. The decree was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on March 28, 2025, the day after the deadline had already expired.
This means that millions of people who were, under every prior understanding of the law, Italian citizens from birth, lost their citizenship without any opportunity to act. There was no advance notice, no transitional period, no reasonable window in which to file a protective application. The forfeiture was instantaneous and irrevocable.
The Mantova judge argued that this is fundamentally incompatible with Article 24. The constitutional right of defense means nothing if rights can be extinguished before the affected person even knows they are at risk. You cannot impose a forfeiture deadline that expires before the people subject to it know it exists.
The Parliamentary Composition Arguments
The invocation of Articles 56 and 58, concerning the composition of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, introduces a dimension that no prior referral had raised. The argument rests on a simple but profound observation: Italian citizens abroad have the right to vote in Italian elections. If D.L. 36/2025 retroactively strips citizenship from a significant diaspora population, it necessarily affects the composition of the electorate and, by extension, the composition of Parliament itself.
This is not an abstract concern. Italy maintains dedicated parliamentary constituencies for citizens abroad (Circoscrizione Estero), electing members of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The loss of citizenship for a large number of overseas Italians would directly affect representation in these constituencies.
What to Watch For on June 9
The Mantova hearing, confirmed for June 9, 2026 at the Constitutional Court in Rome, will be the most comprehensive test of D.L. 36/2025’s constitutionality to date. Unlike the Turin referral, which focused narrowly on retroactivity under three constitutional articles, the Mantova referral requires the Court to address a much broader range of constitutional concerns.
Key questions the Court will need to engage with include:
Whether the Article 24 argument (no notice of the deadline) succeeds in establishing a constitutional defect distinct from the retroactivity arguments already addressed in the Turin ruling.
Whether the Article 22 prohibition (no deprivation of citizenship for political reasons) is engaged by the government’s stated policy rationale for the decree.
Whether the emergency decree mechanism (Articles 72 and 77) was constitutionally appropriate for a reform of this magnitude.
Whether the loss of parliamentary representation for the diaspora (Articles 56 and 58) has constitutional implications.
The breadth of the Mantova referral means the Court cannot dispose of it with a narrow ruling. Each constitutional parameter requires a separate analysis, and the written motivations will need to address arguments that were entirely absent from the Turin proceedings.
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This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Last updated: March 21, 2026.