Breaking the Ancestral Silence: Recognition of Citizenship by Descent Despite the Great Brazilian Naturalization

Abstract

This case note recounts and critically analyzes a judgment with which the Italian Corte di Cassazione has pronounced itself on the acquisition of Italian citizenship jure sanguinis by descendants of Italian ancestors who had allegedly renounced their citizenship upon tacit acceptance of mass naturalization in Brazil. The case note argues that the judgment has effectively resorted to the preclusion of inferences from silence to protect the fundamental status of citizenship from loss. Nonetheless, it claims that the relationship between national rules on modes of acquisition of citizenship and EU citizenship should have been better framed.