Valerio Onida (30 March 1936 – 14 May 2022) was an Italian

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

, and

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...

professor, Judge of the

Constitutional Court of Italy The Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic ( it, Corte costituzionale della Repubblica Italiana) is the highest court of Italy in matters of constitutional law. Sometimes, the name ''Consulta'' is used as a metonym for it, because its sessi ...

and President of the Court from September 2004 to January 2005.

Biography

Professor of Constitutional Law at the

University of Milan The University of Milan ( it, Università degli Studi di Milano; la, Universitas Studiorum Mediolanensis), known colloquially as UniMi or Statale, is a public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe ...

from 1983 to 2009, in January 1996, Onida was elected Judge of the

by the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. He remained in office for nine years, until January 2005. In the last four months, Onida has also been President of the Constitutional Court. In 2010, Onida was a candidate for the

center-left Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The c ...

primary elections for the

Mayor of Milan The mayor of Milan ( it, sindaco di Milano) is the first citizen and head of the municipal government of the city of Milan, Lombardy, Italy. The current office holder is Giuseppe Sala, a centre-left independent who has been in charge since 2016 M ...

, and he ranked third: the winner was

Giuliano Pisapia Giuliano Pisapia (; born 20 May 1949) is an Italian lawyer, politician, former mayor of Milan, former member of the Italian Parliament and member of the European Parliament. As a politician, he has been a member of two left-wing parties, first P ...

, who was later elected Mayor. Onida was very critical of the 2016 constitutional referendum proposed by

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 ...

Matteo Renzi Matteo Renzi (; born 11 January 1975) is an Italian politician who served as prime minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016. He has been a senator for Florence since 2018. Renzi has served as the leader of Italia Viva (IV) since 2019, having been ...

and appealed against it, since, according to him, too many questions were presented in the referendum. Onida's appeal was rejected and he announced that on 4 December he would have voted "No".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Onida, Valerio 1936 births 2022 deaths Italian jurists Judges of the Constitutional Court of Italy Lawyers from Milan Presidents of the Constitutional Court of Italy Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic University of Milan alumni Academic staff of the University of Milan Academic staff of the University of Pavia