1948 Case Processing Time?

[afecad]

After 3 years since I began the process, my 1948 case is going to be filed soon in Catanzaro.

I have been told and read different thoughts on the duration to get judgement. Can anyone comment on how long it took, is 2 years realistic or will it be less? I'm using ICA and the documents appear to be quite extensive and took a great deal of time to get corrected/translated/apostilled, so I do not think there will be anything that would cause a delay.

[qualdom]

After 3 years since I began the process, my 1948 case is going to be filed soon in Catanzaro.

I have been told and read different thoughts on the duration to get judgement. Can anyone comment on how long it took, is 2 years realistic or will it be less? I'm using ICA and the documents appear to be quite extensive and took a great deal of time to get corrected/translated/apostilled, so I do not think there will be anything that would cause a delay.

That's great news to hear that your case will be filed soon.

As I mentioned before, the hardest part for me was to get the U.S. records corrected. Here is my timeline:

July 2021 - case filed
Sept 2021 - hearing date scheduled for Jan 2023
Jan 2023 - case accepted by judge - favorable court decision issued on the same day
Apr 2023 - irrevocable final court judgment obtained by my attorney (most people say this always takes 6 months...not sure why it only took 3 months for me)

[s38tommaso]

Hi afecad

I posted a reply to your other thread regarding 1948 cases here:

https://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum/ ... 96#p336696

It explains my situation in more detail, but to recap, I'm also with ICA, my hearing was filed in February 2023 and I received a hearing date by March 2023 for October 18th 2023, in the court of Potenza. The hearing came and went and, besides a notation that was attached to the case on December 2nd 2023, the contents of which are not possible to see, I still do not have a judgment yet.

As far as my documents are concerned, I followed a similar process to yours with ICA, and everything was in very good order by the time we filed. I started my document collection phase with ICA in January 2021, my initial research began in June 2020.

As I mentioned in my other post, per ICA's point of view, heading into the hearing, there was nothing exceptional about my case or documentation strength.

My timeline is quite a departure from qualdom's, this may speak to the variability between jurisdictions, judges, and individual cases. Needless to say, I am getting quite nervous/worried.

I hope this adds some useful context. For my own edification, is anyone aware of any time limit for rendering a decision in a civil proceeding in Italy? Can judges just take as much time as they want, or must they render some judgment within X amount of time? Can this vary by jurisdiction?

[afecad]

ICA said it could take a year to get the judgment after the date of the case being filed, then another year to appeal (if required), which aligns with qualcomm's comments, which I estimated 2 years or longer.

I do not know if Catanzaro compares to Potenza regarding the number of cases; ICA mentioned that as a possibility.

I hope there will be a hearing within 3-6 months after filing, but that might be wishful thinking. I'm a little concerned with this being an election year in the US and what happened in 2020 with the backlog. Also, if Meloni happens to push for changes in jure sanguinis, I do not think she would since the bloodline is Italian.

[s38tommaso]

It appears that the bulk of the waiting period for qualdom was between the filing and hearing, nearly 18 months, which indicates that this probably took place in the court of Rome back before the rule change given that that court was so backed-up. Also evidenced by the fact that qualdom's judge ruled on the same day. qualdom, can you confirm?

If so, mapping qualdom's experience onto our own isn't a 1:1 comparison, given that we're dealing with regional courts. For example, I got my hearing date approximately 7 months after filing, in less than half the time, but my judge did not rule same-day, instead it's been 3 months and I still do not have a decision. If he were to rule tomorrow, theoretically I'd have my irrevocable judgment by mid-April, making the overall time since filing only 13 or so months.

To clarify, my understanding of the period between initial ruling and irrevocable final judgment is to allow for a 90-day appeals period, so if things are working properly, it should only be 3 months by design.

[s38tommaso]

Another bit of context I've recently learned:

The judge in my region has recently ruled favorably on another 1948 case (not mine). It took him 5 months to arrive at a decision in that particular case.

[qualdom]

It appears that the bulk of the waiting period for qualdom was between the filing and hearing, nearly 18 months, which indicates that this probably took place in the court of Rome back before the rule change given that that court was so backed-up. Also evidenced by the fact that qualdom's judge ruled on the same day. qualdom, can you confirm?

Yes, correct...my case was filed with the court of Rome.

[afecad]

ICA recently told me that if all goes as planned, I should get my citizenship in a year. Wait and see at this point.

[Ariel19]

It's difficult to predict exact timelines for legal cases, especially with international variables, but aiming for 2 years seems reasonable given your preparations and the process so far.