Ozair wrote:They should have an online tracking system, will cost next to nothing, no salaries to pay as in case of a call center representative.
You should just enter your reference number, dob and name and you could instantly know where your application is. Would make the life of everyone easier!
You may not believe it, but Italy has got that.
Problem is, as per my wife application's experience:
- Cost of the application around £2500 (the application on its own is around €200, but they insist you to produce a ton of original documents, all swear translated in italian at applicant expenses, all legalised and/or certified by a notary);
- They gave her the reference number 16 months after the application date, and only because I kept chasing them for that;
- That reference number 16 months later was the only acknowledgment;
- There are 7 stages for the naturalisation applications, and hers is still at the 1st stage after 28 months;
And I really wrote 16 and 28!
You may understand that having a computerized tracking system doesn't really solve much.
And this taking in account that by law they have to give an answer to people like her (i.e. married with an italian citizen) in less than 2 years. At this point they cannot refuse her anymore, but there is no enforceable way to force them to do so. Weird, isn't?
For people who are not married with citizens, it is even worst, they don't have right to any deadline or time limit, averagely they get an answer in 4 or 5 years, but you read horror stories (7-8-10 years) all the times. This after they have managed to live lawfully in Italy 10 years (the general case requirement to apply, also if there are discounts for many categories).
But even marrying with a citizen doesn't warranty that much when any crime has merely been suspected. Just to make one example, after the Fiumicino airport attacks of 1985, someone at the italian Home Office decided to mark all Palestinians lawfully living in Italy at the times as potential members of terrorist cells. So Mr. Ayesh Abu Nahieh, a genoese barber, originally from Gaza, in Italy from 1984, has been battling for 18 years to get his naturalisation throgh (more in italian at
http://www.repubblica.it/2008/07/sezion ... rario.html).
