Republika Włoska: Wyrok Trybunału Konstytucyjnego nr 131 z 2022 r. w przedmiocie zgodności z Konstytucją przepisów włoskiego prawa rodzinnego i praw pokrewnych dotyczących nadawania dzieciom nazwisk

In this case, the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic overturned the validity of the contested provisions of Italian family law, which prohibited parents from giving only the mother’s surname to their child, even if they both agreed to it. The Court declared these provisions unconstitutional not only because they did not allow the will of the parents to be respected, as argued by the common courts, but also because the challenged norm was based on the presumption prescribing the father’s surname as a distinctive feature, determining the family’s identity. Despite international obligations and previous rulings of the Court, which considered the automatic assignment the father’s surname to children to be outdated and incompatible with the principle of equality, there was a lack of intervention by the legislature in this regard. As a consequence, the Court invalidated the provision of the Civil Code, along with other related regulations implying the automatic assignment of the father’s surname to children. The amendment to the family law that is under way as a result of the Italian Court’s decision implicitly provides for the attribution of both parents’ surnames to children, unless the parents agree to give the child the surname of only one of them.