Luciano Violante (born 25 September 1941) is an Italian judge and politician,

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

from 1979 to 2008. He is particularly interested in questions of justice, the struggle against

the Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

and institutional reform.

Biography

Violante was born in

Dire Dawa Dire Dawa ( am, ድሬዳዋ, om, Dirree Dhawaa, 3=Place of Remedy; so, Diridhaba, meaning "where Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", ar, ديري داوا,) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Oromia and Somali Re ...

, in the

Italian Ethiopia Italian Ethiopia ( it, Etiopia italiana), also known as the Italian Empire of Ethiopia, was the territory of the Ethiopian Empire which was occupied by Italy for approximately five years. Italian Ethiopia was not an administrative entity, but the ...

n part of

Italian East Africa Italian East Africa ( it, Africa Orientale Italiana, AOI) was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 through the merger of Italian Somalia, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire, conquered in the Seco ...

. His father, a journalist and

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, was forced to emigrate to Ethiopia by the

fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...

regime. His family was held by the British in an internment camp, where Violante was born and remained until 1943. Graduated in

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

University of Bari The University of Bari Aldo Moro ( it, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro) is a state-supported higher education institution founded in 1925 in Bari, Apulia, in Southern Italy. The university is one of the most prestigious universities in ...

in 1963, he joined the

magistrature The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

in 1966 and became professor of

public law Public law is the part of law that governs relations between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that are of direct ...

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

in 1970. Later he held the position of full professor at

University of Camerino The University of Camerino ( it, Università degli Studi di Camerino) is a university located in Camerino, Italy. It is the best university of Italy among those with fewer than 10,000 students, according to the Guida Censis Repubblica 2011 and 201 ...

. He indicted Edgardo Sogno in 1974 for having planned the so-called '' Golpe bianco'' ("White coup"), but had to release him in 1978, declaring it impossible to prosecute him. From 1977 to 1979 he worked in the legislative office of the

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

, primarily concerned with the struggle against

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

. He was named

investigative magistrate In an inquisitorial system of law, the examining magistrate (also called investigating magistrate, inquisitorial magistrate, or investigating judge) is a judge who carries out pre-trial investigations into allegations of crime and in some cases m ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

in 1979. In 1983 he became a professor of legal institutions and penal procedure and resigned from the magistrature. Violante became a member of the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...

(PCI) in 1979 and was immediately elected to the Parliament. From 1980 to 1987 he was the PCI spokesman for legal policy. He then became the vice-president of the PCI parliamentary group. Following the split of the PCI in 1991, he entered the

Democratic Party of the Left The Democratic Party of the Left ( it, Partito Democratico della Sinistra, PDS) was a democratic socialist and social-democratic political party in Italy. Founded in February 1991 as the post-communist evolution of the Italian Communist Party, ...

(PDS). He was a member of the Inquiry into the

Aldo Moro Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro (; 23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy (DC). He served as prime minister of Italy from December 1963 to June 1968 and then from November 1974 to July ...

case, of the

Antimafia Commission The Italian parliamentary Antimafia Commission ( it, Commissione parlamentare antimafia) is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The first commission, formed in 1963, wa ...

, the parliamentary committee for the security services, the commission for the reform of the penal code, the Justice Commission and the Council for the Regulation of the House of Deputies. Violante was President of the

from September 1992 until March 1994. Under his leadership the Commission investigated the relations between

and politics, the so-called ''terzo livello'' (third level) of the Mafia. Important

pentiti ''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was an Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta participated i ...

Antonio Calderone Antonino Calderone (October 24, 1935January 10, 2013) was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (''pentito'') in 1987 after his arrest in 1986. Antonino was born in Catania, the brother of Giuseppe Calderone, the boss of the local Mafia. ...

and

Gaspare Mutolo Gaspare Mutolo (Palermo, February 5, 1940) is a Sicilian mafioso, also known as "Asparino".Christian Democrat Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...

politician

Salvo Lima Salvatore Achille Ettore Lima (; 23 January 1928 – 12 March 1992) was an Italian politician from Sicily who was associated with, and murdered by, the Sicilian Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima. According to the ''pentito'' ...

, the so-called "

proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military command, or ' ...

" of former

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Giulio Andreotti Giulio Andreotti ( , ; 14 January 1919 – 6 May 2013) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as the 41st prime minister of Italy in seven governments (1972–1973, 1976–1979, and 1989–1992) and leader of the Christian Democra ...

in Sicily. On 16 November 1992

testified before the

about the links between Cosa Nostra and

and

. He indicated

as the contact of the Mafia in Italian politics. "''Salvo Lima was, in fact, the politician to whom Cosa Nostra turned most often to resolve problems for the organisation whose solution lay in Rome,''" Buscetta testified. Violante was elected president of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

on 10 May 1996 and remained in office until 29 May 2001. Re-elected at the 2001 election, he was named president of the

Olive Tree The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' 'M ...

-Democrats of the Left parliamentary group. Confirmed in his functions during the April 2006 election, he is currently the president of the Commission relative to constitutional matters. Beside books on law and penal procedure, he is the author of two books of interviews about the Mafia: ''La mafia dell'eroina'' (1987) and ''I corleonesi'' (1993). He has also published: ''Il piccone e la quercia'' (1992); ''Non è la piovra'' (1995) and a poem, ''Cantata per i bambini morti di mafia'' (1995). He has been the editor of ''Dizionario delle istituzioni e dei diritti del cittadino'' (1996) and of three reports on the Mafia: ''Mafie e antimafia - Rapporto 1996''; ''Mafia e società italiana - Rapporto 1997'' and ''I soldi della mafia - Rapporto 1998''. He also edited two volumes of the ''Annali della Storia d'Italia'' ("Annals of the History of Italy"): ''La criminalità'' (1997) and ''Legge Diritto Giustizia''. In 1998 he published ''L'Italia dopo il 1999. La sfida per la stabilità'' (1998). Luciano Violante considers himself "a believer" but he does not adhere to the Catholic Church.

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