L’illegittimità costituzionale dell’esclusione dei single dall’accesso all’adozione internazionale

The author comments on a recent judgment by the Italian Constitutional Court (Judgment No. 33/2025) having declared the exclusion of single persons from access to international adoption as contemplated under Italian legislation unconstitutional. The present paper places the said judgment within the broader framework of recent Italian case law, by the Constitutional Court and the Suprema Corte di cassazione, concerning recognition of adoption established abroad by same-sex couples, as well as of filiation established equally abroad by same-sex couples by having recourse to medically assisted procreation techniques. The relevant case law reveals a trend towards loosening the scrutiny as to compatibility with Italian public policy in respect of the recognition of family bonds established in circumstances not contemplated by the Italian legal system. In the final part of this paper, the author takes into consideration parallel developments on the EU level, where the Court of Justice in its recent Wojewoda Mazowiecki judgment of November 2025 seems to have pushed sensibly forward the purview of the EU legislative competence, towards the goal of establishing a general duty of recognition of personal and family status established in a different Member State.