Double surname, if there is no agreement between parents? The Interior Ministry explains what happens

Posted on June 17, 2022

After the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the double surname, the agreement between the two parents is “essential” to give the child a single surname. In the absence of this agreement, “the surnames of both parents must be attributed, in the order they decide. If this further agreement is lacking, the intervention of the judge is required, as specified by the decision of the Court “.

The Interior Ministry writes it in a circular to the prefects, to sensitize the mayors in providing information to the state offices. A circular from the Interior Ministry to the prefects, n. 63 of 1 June, with which the head of the Internal and Territorial Affairs Department Claudio Sgaraglia illustrates the content of the sentence of the Constitutional Court No. 131 of 27 April 2022 (Official Journal, I Special Series, number 22 of 1 June 2022) on ” attribution of the double surname to the children, inviting the mayors to be made aware so that they promptly provide the consequent information to the civil status offices of the municipalities.

With the decision in question, the Council declared the constitutional illegitimacy of article 262, paragraph 1, of the Civil Code “in the part in which it provides, with regard to the hypothesis of recognition carried out simultaneously by both parents, that the child assumes the surname of the father, rather than providing that the child takes the surnames of the parents, in the order agreed by them, subject to the agreement, at the time of recognition, to attribute the surname of only one of them “, establishing that the surname of the child “Must be composed with the surnames of the parents”, in the order decided by the same, without prejudice to the possibility that, by mutual agreement, the parents attribute only the surname of one of the two.

The aforementioned agreement, explains the circular, is therefore essential in order to be able to attribute the surname of only one of the parents to the child. In the absence of an agreement, the surnames of both parents must be assigned, in the order decided by them, and if this further agreement is lacking, as the Court specifies in the decision, the intervention of the judge is required.