Mario Oriani-Ambrosini

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Mario Oriani-Ambrosini
IFP MP
IFP MP
In office
6 May 2009 – 16 August 2014
Personal details
Born26 October 1960
Rome, Italy
Died16 August 2014 (2014-08-17) (aged 53)
South Africa
NationalityAmerican
Italian
South African
Political partyInkatha Freedom Party
SpouseCarin
Domestic partnerJani Allan
ChildrenLuke William
Alma materUniversity of Rome and Georgetown University
OccupationLawyer, Businessman and Politician

Mario Gaspare R. Oriani-Ambrosini (26 October 1960 – 16 August 2014) was an Italian

constitutional lawyer and politician who was a Member of Parliament in South Africa with the Inkatha Freedom Party.[1]

Early life

Oriani-Ambrosini was born in Rome in 1960. He was the son of Columbia University trained constitutional law professor and international lawyer Raffaele Oriani,[2] who died in 1971, at 39.

He was then adopted and raised by his grand-uncle

Constitutional Court. Oriani-Ambrosini's education was influenced by his grand uncles, Vittorio Ambrosini a founder of the Italian arditi, and Antonio Ambrosini,[3] an international law professor credited as the architect of the Warsaw Convention.[4] On the paternal side, he was related to Alfredo Oriani, a futurist who subscribed to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
.

Even though his adoptive father was a leader of

Democrazia Cristiana, Oriani-Ambrosini spent his teenage political activism under the wing of Marco Pannella, the leader of the Italian nonviolent radical, environmentalist and libertarian movement. Oriani-Ambrosini maintained a lifelong association with it and was a member of its General Council.[5]

Oriani-Ambrosini attended the

Italian Chamber of Deputies on the US environmental system and the National Environmental Policy Act[6] to support the drafting of an EEC directive and assess its compatibility with the Italian constitutional framework.[7] Oriani-Ambrosini also assisted Prof. Nicola Greco in his conducting of seminars which focused on public enterprise law at the Universita' di Pisa
. From the age of 17, Oriani-Ambrosini worked in the family law firm preparing written legal briefs and arguments.

After winning a

Fulbright scholarship, Oriani-Ambrosini relocated to the United States to specialize in constitutional law and international financial and commercial law. In 1986, he became the right-hand man of Rutgers University law professor, Albert Blaustein
, an international constitutional consultant who participated in the writing of over 30 constitutions worldwide.

He assisted Blaustein in a graduate seminar on constitution's drafting and became the Vice President of the Philadelphia Foundation and the public-advocacy UN-accredited law-firm Human Rights Advocates International, both presided over by Blaustein.

Afrikaner cultural institutions known as "Cultura 2000" in the first challenge on the constitutionality of a law, and in the challenge to single medium-of-instruction education. Oriani-Ambrosini also collaborated on the upkeep of the Blaunstein's 60+ volume collections of "The Constitutions of the World", and "Constitutions of Dependencies and Territories".[9]

Lawyer

Although his career had always been politics and constitutional law, Oriani-Ambrosini made his living as a commercial lawyer and a businessman. Soon after his arrival in Washington, D.C., he became "of counsel" in the small but specialized international law firm of Hanna, Gaspar & Birkel, dealing with international commercial and financial transactions, including interest rates

He began a lifelong friendship with businessman Peter J. Knop and became the General Counsel of the Washington D.C Knop Organization then consisting of TFI, SWPP Development Corp., Agricycle, Inc. and Avenir Corp. He served as the managing director of SWPP and Acrycle, dealing with venture capital and investment management, advising on the structuring of ventures, as well as waste recycling and agribusiness in a highly regulated and litigation-prone environment. Together with Knop he created a $10 million per year business which was involved in lobbying, litigation and government relations.

Politics

In 1991 he began what would become a life-changing relationship with Prince

Security Council in a meeting called by Nelson Mandela to push forward the transition to democracy. In November 1992 he drafted the Constitution of KwaZulu/Natal which was unanimously adopted by the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly as the constitution of a member state of a federation to be formed in the national negotiation process. This was the first detailed constitutional draft or proposal in the South African constitution-making process and in that process, helped to advance civil liberties such as abortion, gay rights and a ban on the death penalty, as well as second and third generation human rights which until that point were not part of the South African constitutional discourse.[11]

For three years Oriani-Ambrosini worked full-time as the chief constitutional negotiator for the IFP and the erstwhile KwaZulu Government, and was involved in all stages and phases of the negotiation from its beginning to the end of pre-election negotiations, including the entire drafting of the 1994 interim Constitution.[12] He played a key role in the international mediation effort led by Henry Kissinger and Lord Carrington and the negotiation of the Agreement for Reconciliation and Peace which enabled an all-inclusive democratic election in 1994.[13] as well as the finalization of the South African Constitution.[11][14]

After South Africa's first democratic elections, Buthelezi became South Africa's Minister of Home Affairs and the Leader of a minority party in Mandela's

Government of National Unity. Oriani-Ambrosini was then appointed as Buthelezi's sole Cabinet Adviser.[15] He held this position for 10 years, providing advice for all issues before Cabinet and in Parliament, including the negotiation and drafting of the final national Constitution, the adoption of hundreds of comprehensive legislative reforms and policy documents transforming almost all fields of government and civil society. He co-drafted film and publication laws, citizenship amendment laws, homosexual life partnership and customary union regulations and other reforms which carry a libertarian slant.[16]

Oriani-Ambrosini is acknowledged as being the main, if not the sole, architect of the South African immigration reform process from 1996 to 2004. He was appointed by Buthelezi as a Member of the task force formulating the new South African immigration policy where he became the drafter of both the policy and the new legislation. He was also responsible for piloting the legislation through NEDLAC and Parliament,[17] acting as the Ministers spokesperson in this often controversial process. He then drafted the interim immigration regulations and piloted the subsequent process of consultations for the final regulations.[18]

In Home Affairs, he advised the Minister regarding all policy matters as well as the management of a 7000 plus person department during the tenure of six Director-Generals.[19] He was intimately involved in the structuring of the electronic universal population and fingerprints registry ("HANIS") and related national ID card, as well as the departmental restructuring to devolve civil affairs delivery aspects to municipalities and in all aspects of the department's policies and legislation.[20] Oriani-Ambrosini promoted the first high level security cooperation between his Department and U.S. security and negotiated high-level cooperation with Australia in refugee affairs.

During his ten years in the South African government, Oriani-Ambrosini's responsibilities were not limited to Home Affairs. In that period he advised the Province of

KwaZulu Natal, including negotiating and drafting the 1996 provincial Constitution of KwaZulu Natal, a number of pieces of legislation adopted by the provincial legislature and several of the province's constitutional litigations. With Director General R. Sizani, he spearheaded the legal and administrative implementation of KwaZulu Natal's historical defiance of President's Thabo Mbeki's dictate that no lifesaving-antiretroviral drugs were to be given within the public system to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV-AIDS. He also advised the Coalition of Traditional Leaders and precursory groupings of traditional leaders and partook in all major activities of the governing and policy making bodies of the IFP, including re-drafting most of the Party's constitution and supporting all the IFP's annual party conferences. Throughout this period, Oriani-Ambrosini partook in high-level and State trips to Germany, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, Israel, Morocco, Italy, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, the United States, Portugal, France and Bulgaria, and was member of the Government of South Africa
's delegation at three high-level United Nations conferences as well as numerous international visits and conventions.

Oriani-Ambrosini also directed, managed and/or engineered over 45 major constitutional and high-profile civil litigation cases on behalf of the IFP, the KwaZulu Natal Government and the Department of Home Affairs.

Oriani-Ambrosini left the South African Government in May 2004 to reopen his Washington, D.C. office and establish Ambrosini & Associates a legal and business consultancy. He established Promethea Corporation, a philanthropic company which manufactured safe kerosene cookers in

KwaZulu Natal, Buthelezi's constitutional amendments Bill to separate the offices of Head of State and Head of Government and several other policy documents.[22] He also participated in the 4th World Parliamentary Convention on Tibet and directed successful public interest constitutional litigation.[23]

He became a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa in May 2009 where he served on the following Committees: Trade and Industry, Public Enterprises, Economic Development, Justice and Constitutional Development Portfolio, Finance and Rules, Private Members Bills and the Constitutional Review Joint Committees.

Oriani-Ambrosini brought to the South African Parliament the spirit and methodology of nonviolent democratic radicalism. He organized and single-handedly executed the first

Member of Parliament from introducing legislation.[24] He intervened as an amicus curiae in the constitutional litigation which barred the extension of the term of office of the Chief Justice [25] and in litigation determining the measure of freedom of speech allowed in Parliament. He also used the tool of requesting the President not to assent legislation to return it to Parliament on constitutional grounds, which the President did with respect of the controversial Intellectual Property Law Amendment Bill which would take out of the public domain indigenous folklore and traditional knowledge.[25]

Oriani-Ambrosini was one of the six founding members and a director of the Parliamentary Institute of South Africa (PISA) a tax-exempt,cross-party parliamentary forum, which facilitates meaningful dialogue amongst serving and former parliamentarians,captains of industry, opinion makers, leaders of civil society, academics and diplomats.[26]

Oriani-Ambrosini was part of INPaT, (the international Network of Parliamentarians'on Tibet) an action group established and mandated at the World Parliamentary Conference on Tibet. He has visited Tibetan camps in India and has been an outspoken advocate of human rights protection in Tibet, often publicly challenging the Chinese government to allow an international parliamentary fact-finding mission to have unfettered access to Tibet. He led his party leader's successful lawsuit against the ANC, which found the South African government's repeated denial of an entry visa to the Dalai Lama to be wrongful.[27]

Oriani-Ambrosini published extensively on economic and financial matters, advocating a libertarian model for the realization of a just and fair society. His thinking, expressed in his Libertarian Manifesto, endorses the role of the state in providing free and universal access to services such as education, health and social assistance, but suggests that the state ought to operate or own no delivery infrastructure or facility.[28] He has advocated the reform of the monetary system to substitute debt-based banknotes with government issued debt-free notes in a system which no longer allows banking fractional reserve.[29][30]

Oriani-Ambrosini maintained his legal practice in the US, albeit remotely, as well as a standing political association with the US libertarian movement. In 2013 he became a partner in the South African office of Translink, a Swiss-based international corporate finance firm specializing in mergers and acquisition with 30 offices worldwide.[31]

At the time of his death Oriana-Ambrosini was a citizen of the United States, Italy and South Africa and was fluent in both English and Italian.

On 19 February 2014 Oriani-Ambrosini stood up in the SA National Assembly and introduced a private members bill to decriminalise the medical use of cannabis. The Medical Innovation Bill, is "to make provision for innovation in medical treatment and to legalise the use of cannibanoids for medical purpose and beneficial commercial industrial uses".[32]

Death

Mario Oriani-Ambrosini died in 2014, slightly over a year after publicly disclosing that he had Stage 4 lung cancer.[33]

Publications

  • Oriani-Ambrosini, Mario (2017). The Prince And I - A South African Institutional Odyssey,
    ISBN 978-0-620-74771-4, autobiography published posthumously.[34]

References

  1. ^ South Africa: Parliament Needs Change to Strengthen MPs' Oversight Muscle BusinessDay. 17 June 2009.
  2. ^ "Ricerca Rapida - UCSC - La costituzione degli Stati Uniti nella realtà odierna / Edward S. Corwin ; a cura di Raffaele Oriani". Archived from the original on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  3. ^ "AMBROSINI, Antonio in "Dizionario Biografico"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  4. .
  5. ^ Radicale, Radio (8 May 2009). "Intervista a Mario Gaspare Oriani Ambrosini sui rimpatri forzati in Libia degli immigrati da parte del governo italiano". Radio Radicale (in Italian). Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  6. ^ Le municipalità statunitensi e il governo dell'ambiente a livello locale In: Studi parlamentari e di politica costituzionale. n. 68(1985), p. 71 et seq.
  7. ^ [1][dead link]
  8. .
  9. ^ Jim Beacon: Madison, Jefferson... Oriani-Ambrosini? in Virginias Business February 1992
  10. ^ The Washington Lawyer: New Global Lawyers Hanna & Oriani, January 1990
  11. ^ a b "Mario Gaspare Oriani-Ambrosini - Innovations for Successful Societi…". archive.is. 13 February 2013. Archived from the original on 13 February 2013. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  12. ^ sahoboss (31 March 2011). "List of the South African Constitution negotiators". South African History Online. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  13. ^ Ben Temkin, Buthelezi: A biography, pages 293 et seq.
  14. ^ tinashe (16 January 2012). "Chapter 11 - Negotiating the final constitution". South African History Online. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  15. ^ Staff Reporter. "Buthelezi's divisive adviser". The M&G Online. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  16. ^ [2] Archived May 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ Page redirection Archived 2008-09-07 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ "Immigration Act regulations: briefing; Annual Report: finalisation". Parliamentary Monitoring Group. 18 February 2003. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  19. ^ Molebeledi, Pule (13 June 2002). "South Africa: Is Masetlha Pawn in Political Game?". AllAfrica. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  20. ^ Cat-And-Mouse Game At Home Affairs Archived 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ http://www.promethea.biz Archived 2013-06-14 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ "IFP: Statement by Mangosuthu Butehlezi, Inkatha Freedom Party Leader, welcomes Constitutional Court judgment on regulation of introduction of bills (12/10/2012)". Polity.org.za. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  23. ^ Tolsi, Niren. "'AK-47' to IFP's rescue". The M&G Online. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  24. ^ [e-Library OPAC]
  25. ^ a b [3][dead link]
  26. ^ "PISA | Founding members". Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  27. ^ "IFP: Statement by Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, Inkatha Freedom Party spokesperson on Justice, on the Supreme Court ruling to decide whether China rules over South Africa (09/11/2012)". Polity.org.za. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  28. ^ Vegter, Ivo. "The elusive libertarian enclave | Daily Maverick". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  29. ^ Letter To The Deputy President From Mario G.R. Oriani-Ambrosini. MP Archived 2014-05-21 at the Wayback Machine
  30. YouTube
  31. ^ Translink Corporate Finance Archived 2013-02-04 at archive.today
  32. ^ "Ill MP to introduce dagga bill | IOL News". Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  33. ^ "IFP MP Mario Oriani-Ambrosini dies". The Mail & Guardian. 16 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  34. .