President Amato is Professor Emeritus at the European University Institute of Fiesole and at La Sapienza University in Rome. He served as a Member of Parliament for 18 years, as well as Minister of the Interior, and served two terms as Minister of the Treasury and two terms as Prime Minister. He was also Chairman of the International Commission on the Balkans from 2003-2005, and Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe from 2002-2003.
President Amato is an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Politicas. He was Chairman of the Board of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the Treccani Institute, and headed the Italian Antitrust Authority from 1994 to 1997.
President Amato is Honorary President of the Center for American Studies in Rome and chairs the academic board of the Cortile dei Gentili initiative.
He serves as academic director of the quarterly Mercato, Concorrenza e Regole, published by Il Mulino.
President Amato has written extensively on the topics of antitrust law, individual freedom, forms of government, European integration, and many areas of policy. His many published works include: Economia, Politica e Istituzioni in Italia (Il Mulino, 1976); Antitrust and the Bounds of Power (Hart Publishing, 1997); Il Gusto della Libertà: L’Italia e l’Antitrust (Laterza, 1998); Noi in Bilico: Inquietudini e Speranze di un Cittadino Europeo (with F. Forquet) (Laterza, 2005); Forme di Stato e Forme di Governo (Il Mulino, 2006); Alfabeto Italiano (with P. Peluffo) (Università Bocconi Editore, 2011); Le Istituzioni della Democrazia: Un Viaggio Lungo Cinquant’anni (Il Mulino, 2015); Corte Costituzionale e Corti Europee: fra Diversità Nazionali e Visione Comune (with the collaboration of B. Barbisan) (Il Mulino, 2016); Le Identità Nazionali nell’Unione Europea (Firenze University Press, 2018); “L'Europeismo di Altieri Spinelli,” in A. Spinelli, Europeismo (Treccani, 2019); “Identità Europea e Identità Nazionali,” in Calendario Civile Europeo (Donzelli, 2019); “Ma Cos'è Successo alla Democrazia,” in Rivista di Scienze dell'Educazione, 3, 2020; and “Dal Governo Amato al Governo Ciampi,” in AA.VV., Carlo Azeglio Ciampi 1920-2020, (Edizioni della Normale, 2021).
Professor Amato has authored 171 decisions since his appointment to the Court in 2013.
These have included rulings on fundamental rights and the right to personal identity. Some of the most noteworthy of these include the judgments on passing maternal last names on to children (Judgments Nos. 286 of 2016 and 18 of 2021), the judgment that eliminated the surgery requirement in order to correct the gender designation on official records (Judgment No. 221 of 2015), and the decision to extend access to civil service positions to foreign nationals (Judgment No. 119 of 2015).
Other rulings that bear mentioning include the judgment on preventive measures (Judgment No. 178 of 2021) and social services and social security provisions for convicted criminals (Judgment No. 137 of 2021), as well as those on the juvenile detention system (Judgments Nos. 263 of 2019 and 231 of 2021). Finally, in matters concerning the relationship between branches of State, he has authored decisions including those on judicial review of parliamentary rules (Judgment No. 120 of 2014), on the reasons for efficiency and timeliness in parliamentary decision-making on financial and budgetary matters (Judgment No. 60 of 2020), and on pairing referendum voting with administrative elections (Order No. 195 of 2020).