RECOGNITION OF ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP IN CITIZENS EMIGRATED IN ISRAEL BEFORE 1948

The Court of Appeal of Rome, with a recent ruling, upheld the request formulated by the law firm of Avv. Roberto Coen, recognizing the italian citizenship of a person born in Israel in 1944, from an italian father and emigrated to what was then a territory subject to the British Mandate, and where in 1940 he had acquired palestinian citizenship.

The Court of Appeal of Rome reiterated the fundamental principle that the loss of italian citizenship presupposes not only the spontaneous acquisition of the foreign citizen, but also an act of free and conscious renunciation on the part of its owner.

This renunciation had never taken place in this case, nor with the automatic acquisition of israeli citizenship, according to the "return" law, applicable to all jews emigrated to Palestine and residing there at the time of the constitution of the state of israel, nor with the acquisition of palestinian citizenship, as it was an act that was not spontaneous but necessitated by the circumstances of the era in which it occurred, namely the emigration to Palestine in conjunction with the racial laws and subsequent entry into the war of the Italy against Great Britain entrusted with the palestinian protectorate.