Tesauro: from the twin sentences to the Porcellum, a career of the highest profile

The professional career of Giuseppe Tesauro, a great Neapolitan jurist, who passed away yesterday at the age of 78, has a very high profile. Distinguished as judge and president of the Constitutional Court where he was appointed on November 4, 2005 by the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, he was elected on July 30, 2014 at the head of the Council, with 7 votes out of 13 voters. He held the role until 9 November 2014, the day of expiry of the office of constitutional judge. Many of his sentences that will go down in the history of Italian jurisprudence. These include the so-called “twin sentences” of the Constitutional Court (numbers 348 and 349 of 2007), which were the first to clarify the importance assigned to the constraint of ‘compliance with international obligations’, in particular the Convention on human rights introduced at art. 117, first paragraph of the Constitution. Also relevant was the sentence 238 of 2014, on the responsibility for the damages of the Second World War in which it was ruled that following the peace treaties the affair had not ended, therefore the German state could be sued. Or even the sentence of abolition of the Porcellum (1-2014) declared unconstitutional by the Council, which led to the reintroduction of the proportional system. Graduated in law from the University of Naples in 1964, in 1982 Tesauro was appointed director of the Institute of International Law of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce of the “La Sapienza” University of Rome; here he also held the position of director of the specialization school on the European Communities since 1984. A cassation lawyer, he practiced his activity at the Carnelutti law firm, one of the best known in the Italian capital. Since 1987 Tesauro has been a member of the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Litigation Council. In September 1988, he was appointed Advocate General at the European Court of Justice. On December 16, 1997 he was chosen by the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate, Luciano Violante and Nicola Mancino, as President of the Competition and Market Authority for seven years starting from January 1, 1998. During his management, the Control Authority on competition, it has gained ever greater authority by challenging consolidated monopolies and oligopolies and soliciting liberalization in protected sectors. From 31 March 2016 to 25 June 2018 he was Chairman of Banca Carige.