Adozione internazionale e persona singola: additiva di principio, idoneità in concreto e ordine pubblico «esterno» (nota a Corte cost., 21 marzo 2025, n. 33)

Abstract

The note analyses Italian Constitutional Court judgment No. 33/2025, which removes the status-based bar in art. 29 bis (1) of Law No. 184/1983 that excluded single persons from accessing the preliminary fitness procedure for intercountry adoption. The ruling reframes the constitutional-conventional parameter (art. 2 Cost. + art. 8 ECHR) in terms of positive obligations, applies a “strong” proportionality test (suitability/necessity/strict proportionality), and narrows the margin of appreciation where identity and private life are at stake and a European consensus exists. The decision does not create a subjective right to parenthood: it restores the centrality of the individualized assessment under art. 6 (age, affective fitness, ability to care and maintain), treating the foyer stable et harmonieux as a functional criterion rather than a proxy for marriage and giving structural weight to the applicant’s family-social network. Systemically, the ruling aligns domestic law with the 2012–2013 reforms (unity of the status filiationis), mitigates export/import asymmetries in the 1993 Hague framework and coheres with the “law of families” and the “right to family”.