Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that single people can adopt children from abroad, a right in the Catholic country previously reserved by law for married couples.
“The exclusion of single people from the international adoption of minors is unconstitutional,” the Rome court said in a press release summing up the ruling.
The decision was hailed “historic” by opposition parties in Italy, which has strong ties to the Vatican and whose far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni describes herself as a “Christian mother”.
Meloni won the 2022 general election on a campaign of traditional family values and hostility towards immigrants.
The case centres on the request by a single woman in Florence in 2019 for legal permission to adopt.
Although that request was denied by a Tuscan court as illegal under the 1983 law, it forwarded her case to the Constitutional Court to see whether her rights were being infringed.
The Rome court found the law as it stood “disproportionately restricted” the rights of aspiring parents who sought to adopt out of a wish to help a child in need of a home.
It said a desire to become a parent “falls within the freedom of self-determination of the person and must be taken into account, together with the multiple and primary interests of the minor”.
“Single persons are theoretically suitable to ensure a stable and harmonious environment for the child in a state of abandonment,” it said.
As happens with married couples, it would be up to the judge examining adoption requests “to ascertain in concrete terms the emotional suitability of the aspiring parent and his or her ability to educate, instruct and maintain the child”, it said.
That “may also take into account the family network of reference of the aspiring parent”, it said.
Alessandro Zan, responsible for rights in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), described the ruling as “a historic turning point”.
“Meloni and her government must recognise once and for all that what matters is love, not marital status,” he said.
“And now let’s go further. This right must also be extended to couples of the same sex. Enough discrimination. Enough prejudice,” he said.
Experts said the ruling may now be used by single people seeking legal recourse to adopt children within Italy too.
