Operation Cannoli Newsletter #54

Ciao a Tutti,

Big news today! In this week's newsletter...

Judge Assigned and Waiting for Court Date
App to Track Court Case
About Our Judge
Appeals?
Next Steps/Future Emails

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This morning, our lawyer let us know that we have been assigned a case number and a judge. Our case number is 16588-2022. Our judge is Adele Pezone. Based on when I am seeing on the Facebook group, it typically takes about a month to be assigned a court date with this particular judge. We should, then, hopefully have a court date scheduled sometime around mid-April. She appears to be scheduling just over a year out — we’ll probably have a court date around April of 2023.
If you are so inclined, you can track our court case using an app on your phone. Here the link for iPhone and for Android. I hear the process is slightly different on Android, but I don’t have a device to test this with, so someone with an Android phone might need to let me know how it goes.
1. Once you download the app, everything is in Italian, and there is not an English option. In the bottom row, tap on Uffici. Search for Lazio. Choose: Roma Tribunali Ordinario. Tap “Sì” if a little popup comes up. Make sure that the little drop down menu at the top says "Contenzioso Civile" Tap Ruolo Generale. Type in our case number (16588) and make sure 2022 is selected. On the page that loads, you can tap the floppy disk to save this case into the “Fascicoli” tab at the bottom of the app.
2. I will keep you up to date on any major updates or changes to our case, so using this app is thoroughly optional.
The judge we got has some positives and one really big negative. She appears to be well-liked and regarded as generally very fair. She is quick in getting cases on her schedule and is scheduling court dates that are really close. Her one downside is that she has tended to rule against cases where the child of the Italian-born ancestor was a minor when her or his parent naturalized. Unfortunately, this is our case. Grandpa Arduino became a US citizen when Grandma Florence was just 6 years old. It’s not clear if Judge Pezone simply used to rule this way or if she still does. To be clear: her judgement is mistaken when she rejects cases like ours; the ministry of the interior, whom we are suing in this case, say that the law should not be interpreted this way. Other judges acknowledge that this way of ruling is incorrect as well. Unfortunately, the Italian courts do not rely on precedent in the same what that US courts do.
The good news in light of this judge assignment is that, should Judge Pezone rule against us because Grandma Florence was a minor when her dad naturalized, we can appeal. This is good news because these cases, when they are rejected for this reason, have, to date, always won on appeal. This is because appeals are heard by a three-judge panel, and there are only a small number of judges, like Judge Pezone who make these erroneous judgments. Personally, I am interested in appealing should we need to, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
So, what’s next? I’ll email you when we definitely have a court date assigned, hopefully next month. I’ll email again with any important updates, like if our court date changes or we are reassigned to a different judge. You’ll definitely hear from me in early August when our last payment to our lawyer is due. Then you’ll hear from me around our court date! Decisions usually take a couple of days to be uploaded, so it might be a bit after our actual court date. In the meantime, you can always peruse the Italian Citizenship Guide at goinglupi.com.

Please let me know what questions you have. I’m here to help and inform!

Un Abbraccio,

Noah