Question – Dearest editorial staff,
a Ukrainian lady referred to our front office, she regularly lives in Italy and she would like to have her son come to Italy since her income and her flat would allow family rejoining. Her son is minor and he lives in Ukraine. Parenthood certificates need to be legalised and validated, but the problem is: what does it mean that the other parent’s consent is mandatory? Is it a self-declaration? Does the father need to sign a form? The lady is legally divorced and she’s granted custody of her son. But the real problem stands in the fact that the lady’s former husband is irregularly living in Italy.
Thanks a lot.
Answer – If one parent is granted custody of his/her children, it doesn’t mean that the other parent has no rights towards his/her children. Therefore consent is anyway necessary. Expatriation would change the relationship with the children, this is why consent is mandatory.
The case we are today studying is about a woman that regularly lives in Italy whereas the child’s father irregularly lives here and he cannot go back to his country of origin in order to sign authorisation to the child’s expatriation.
This sort of consent is usually signed in front local qualified authorities. Only if the country’s law does not provide for such a formal procedure, authorisation to expatriation can be signed at Italian diplomatic posts: this authorisation is in fact going to be used within Italian procedures.
Unfortunately the man we are talking about cannot possibly refer to an Italian diplomatic post nor to his countries’ authorities since he is a clandestine.
We are being asked whether this man may refer to a Ukrainian diplomatic post in Italy or not. This might be tried out. Such a declaration could be legalised at the Italian Prefecture and then it could be considered valid. If the Ukrainian diplomatic post assesses the paper validity to the country’s law no one in Italy could consider the document as not valid.
Police may of course be disappointed by the fact that this man irregularly lives in Italy… and this man may risk to be ordered expulsion.