The chamber of Deputies is now in the process of considering Bill 733. The bill has been before the Justice and the Constitutional Affairs committees since Tuesday March 11 prior to passing to the chamber.
The security package is almost entirely devoted to immigration, albeit under the definition of migration as only a security problem. The text considered by the Senate is worrying due to the consequences it may have.
If the version of the text already passed by the Senate was approved we would have a law that would drastically change the way migration and the plight of migrants in Italy are governed.
We have repeatedly dealt with, and analyzed the various points contained in this bill. On this occasion, to give an example of the effects that would result from one of the many changes required by the legislation, we will try to examine the requirement to possess a Permit to Stay in order to register all civil acts.
It will be obligatory to show a Permit to Stay in order to register any civil status act, not only for marriages of a foreign nationals or between foreign nationals, but for every registration of civil status. Without this it will not be possible to register any change of civil status. These registrations affect the exercise of basic human rights, regardless of the regularity or otherwise of residence.
For example, these acts relate to the registration of the birth of a child, or the registration of death, although of course the omission of the latter would produce less severe damage (even though it could lead to problems relating to inheritance or pensions).
The registration of a birth, as well as the recognition of a natural child by either or both parents, would be prevented by the failure to present a Permit to Stay, condemning to civil death a person who has made the “mistake” of being born to parents without a Permit to Stay. Or, in the case of a child born to a regular resident and an irregular father, the latter will be deprived of the opportunity to acknowledge their paternity.
The consequences of this exclusion remain to be seen. This is also because one would have to imagine that if a child is born to an “irregular” immigrant on Italian soil, not being recognized by the parents he or she is nobody’s child, and in this case art. 1 of Law 91 / 92 of citizenship law requires that he or she be granted Italian citizenship by birth. Just as would happen if the law of the parents’ country of origin did not foresee the automatic acquisition of the citizenship of that country in the case of birth overseas.
What relationship would arise between two natural parents, and a child who was an Italian citizen from birth?
What is all too apparent is the violation of the New York Convention on the Rights of the Child which expressly provides for the obligation to register the birth of any child born in any country that has signed the Convention, regardless of the parents’ nationality, and evidently of the regularity of their residence. This is in essence an aberrant provision that would not provide any utility in terms of security and public order. The child born by a couple who wish to recognize it, but being illegal cannot do so, is not dependent on them, would become nobody’s child. The Italian public services would be legally responsible for this child. So apart from a dramatic violation of the rights of the child, this would also result in increases in public expenditure.
The proposal to require previous production of a Permit to Stay for the performance of certain civil acts starting with marriage, was introduced to prevent those marriages that are considered a priori to be fake marriages or marriages of convenience, and so to prevent , through marriage, the regularization of the residence of foreign nationals hitherto considered irregular. The view that so-called mixed marriages between Italians and irregular foreigners are “fake” is belied by the reality that we can all see right in front of our noses, that there are plenty of couples consisting of Italians and foreigners. In any case, if the desire is to talk about “fake” marriages it is really ridiculous to suppose that there are “fake” births, or rather that pregnancies and conceptions are undertaken to produce beneficial effects on residence conditions, especially since this would not be the case even under the laws currently in effect. It is therefore completely impossible to understand the purpose of this legislation.
Translated by Chris B.