Abstract

With the judgement of May 31, 2022, No. 131, the Italian Constitutional Court declared unlawful all provisions that automatically attribute to children the surname of the father, bringing the Italian legal system into line with the fundamental principles of equality and non-discrimination. The ruling marks the end of a long jurisprudential process and entrusts the legal system with the task, which can no longer be postponed, of regulating the delicate profile of the surname in order to weigh the various interests at stake. Awaiting an opinion from the legislator, this article aims to propose, both from the perspective of de iure condendo and through the lens of systematic analysis, an initial architecture to resolve the main problems that will confront the interpreter, highlighting at the same time the emergence of issues that, far from being limited to the periphery of the case, concern the space of private autonomy and its protection