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.
[7] Oriani-Ambrosini also assisted Prof. Nicola Greco in his conducting of seminars which focused on public enterprise law at the Universita' di Pisa.
In December 1990, he acted as the legal advisor for the Inkatha Freedom Party at the opening of CODESA, the two-year-long South African constitutional negotiations from apartheid to democracy.
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.
[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.
[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.
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.
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 Vietnam and distributed them in Africa to replace unsafe versions used by millions of people.
[21] While focusing on rebuilding his legal practice and setting up business ventures in China, Vietnam, Europe and South Africa, Oriani-Ambrosini continued to advise Buthelezi on policy and institutional matters.
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.
[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.