Cristiana Felisi writes for We Wealth on when a parent can lose custody of their children

Cristiana Felisi, Private Client Partner and Head of our Milan Office, has written for We Wealth examining a recent decision of the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione, Prima Sezione Civile, sentenza n. 20033 of 15 June 2026) which clarifies the circumstances in which a court may depart from the principle of shared custody (affidamento condiviso) and grant exclusive custody to one parent.

The case concerned a mother's appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal of Catania, which had reformed the first-instance judgment of the Tribunal of Ragusa and granted exclusive custody of the children to the father, temporarily limited the mother's parental responsibility and suspended, then gradually reintroduced under protected conditions, contact between mother and children. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal, reaffirming that the principle of bigenitorialità (dual parenting) operates as a functional criterion to safeguard the concrete best interests of the minor, rather than as an absolute rule.

In her article, Cristiana explores how the Court confirmed that exclusive custody remains an exceptional measure, to be ordered only where shared parental responsibility would be contrary to the welfare of the child. She examines the weight given to the child's expressed wishes – which may be set aside where a conflictual family context or obstructive or manipulative conduct by a parent is established – and highlights the Court's reminder that a formal plea of violation of law cannot be used to reopen the merits of the parental fitness assessment.

The piece is a helpful reminder that, in Italian family law, the child's best interests remain the decisive factor in every custody decision, and that shared custody, though the ordinary regime, must yield where it would not, in practice, serve the welfare of the minor.

Read the full article on We Wealth (in Italian) here.