Frozen mandates, real consequences: the effects of the Italian Corte di Cassazione silence on citizenship applications

In his article “As the Court of Cassation has yet to rule on Venice ordinanze, crisis grows between Italian citizenship firms and clients” (Insieme, 27 May 2026), Desiderio Peron describes a problem that is technical on paper but very concrete for applicants worldwide. The Court of Venice has sent two cases (RG 5343/2025 and RG 5358/2025) to the Corte di Cassazione, asking it to clarify when a lawyer’s power of attorney in citizenship cases should be considered non‑existent from the outset, not just flawed or incomplete.

The issue revolves around article 182 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, which allows certain representation defects to be corrected later. Here, however, the Venetian judge draws a distinction: one thing is a mandate that exists but is filed incorrectly; quite another is a situation where, at the time the action is brought, the lawyer simply has no valid authority to act. In the orders, this is described as “ab origine” lack of the ius postulandi – and that’s a more serious issue than a missing document.

While the Corte di Cassazione thinks it over, proceedings are suspended and uncertainty permeates the entire citizenship industry. Clients worry about cases filed in recent years; companies and intermediaries face frozen pipelines, financial pressure, and, in some regions, drastic downsizing or outright closure. And this is not just about structures in Brazil: anyone who has relied on standardized, outsourced court filings, whether from Lisbon, Toronto, or Melbourne, should at least be asking who actually held the pen in their name.

Everything takes place in a climate already made more difficult by Law 74/2025 (the so‑called “Decreto Tajani”), where formal and procedural objections carry increasing weight. The right to Italian citizenship iure sanguinis may remain in principle, but the real battleground is shifting to how that right is brought before a judge – and whether the person who brought your case to court was ever truly entitled to speak for you.