Last week (on January 27) the Official Gazette of Italian Law has published the final version of a Legislative Decree (D.Lgs. 19 gennaio 2017, n. 7) which finally provides the international law rules for the regulation of civil unions.
This decree makes some important changes to the Italian act on private international law (L. 31 maggio 1995, n. 218) introducing four new articles related to marriage celebrated abroad by Italian citizens of the same sex (art. 32-bis), civil union between persons of the same sex (art. 32-ter), dissolution of civil union (art. 32-quater), civil union established abroad between Italian citizens of the same sex (art. 32-quinquies).
This reform represents a historic step for the Italian legislator, which – let us remember – in July 2015 had been sanctioned for its inaction by the European Court of Human Rights with the decision on the “Oliari and others vs. Italy” case; in fact, the Court had found a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention which guarantees the right to respect for private and family life.
The text of the decree is available HERE; for a comment on it (in Italian) you can read “In arrivo in Gazzetta il decreto legislativo sulle norme di diritto internazionale privato per le unioni civili” by Marina Castellaneta.
[photo by David Shankbone – license: CC BY-SA 3.0 – source: Wikipedia]
