An Italian appeals court has issued a groundbreaking ruling that allows a four-year-old child to have two legal fathers and one mother. On May 12, 2026, the Court of Appeal in Bari made public its January 21 decision ordering Italy to recognize a German adoption order involving the boy.
The child was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on December 17, 2021, to a woman who was a longtime friend of a same-sex male couple married in Germany since 2019. Court documents show he was initially registered as the biological son of the mother and one of the men. In late 2022, a Berlin court approved the adoption of the boy by the biological father’s husband.When the couple later asked an Italian municipality in Apulia to register the German adoption—because the biological father holds Italian citizenship abroad—local officials refused.
They suspected a “secret surrogacy” arrangement, which is illegal under both Italian and German law. The municipality argued there was “legitimate suspicion” the woman had carried the child on behalf of the intended parents.The appellate judges rejected that claim after examining German court and social-service records. Berlin social workers had visited the family in October 2022 and confirmed that both men had cared for the child daily since birth. The boy also continued to see his mother and maternal siblings.
Citing precedents from Italy’s Supreme Court, the Bari judges ruled that recognizing foreign adoptions involving same-sex couples does not violate Italian law or public order when no surrogacy contract is proven and the child’s best interests are served. Attorney Pasqua Manfredi called the decision protection for “new forms of shared parenthood.”
The ruling highlights how Italian courts are increasingly aligning with broader European and Western legal trends on family structures, even under a conservative government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The decision reflects judicial activism that challenges traditional views of motherhood and fatherhood as rooted in sexual complementarity and the natural family unit of one man and one woman.