Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, Civil United Sections, No. 13332/2010, 1 June 2010

International adoption. Discrimination based on the ethnicity of the minor.

art. 30, art. 39 ter Law 4 May 1983 No. 184

If the possible selection of the minor to be adopted is manifested through an express option before the public bodies, thereby asking to raise the belonging of the minor to a specific ethnic group as a limit of the adoption procedure, the judge is prohibited from endorsing such a choice that is in contrast with the prohibition of any form of discrimination, and of any inequality of treatment between Italian and foreign minors in the matter of adoption, reaffirmed several times by national and supranational jurisprudence. Therefore, the certificate of suitability cannot be issued to applicants who declare the will to adopt, specifying from which countries the minor should come or not, and, above all, subordinating his / her availability to adoption to possession or lack, in the minor of specific psychological, genetic and racial characteristics linked to the minor's belonging to one or more of the reported ethnic groups.