How many centuries will we still have to wait because the president of the Antitrust it's not the usual jurist but finally be a economist? The Competition and Market Authority, as the name suggests, deals daily with companies, competition, markets, consumer protection: after five distinguished jurists (from Saja to Giuliano Amato, from Tesauro to Catricalà and Pitruzzella ) would it not have been logical that the presidents of the Chamber and of the Senate, who by law are responsible for appointing the president of the Antitrust, had chosen an economist for the first time? But that did not happen, despite the fact that there are already two jurists on the Antitrust board. Robert Rustichelli he is a magistrate that Roberto Fico and Elisabetta Casellati say they don't even know, but that they have chosen for the presidency of the Antitrust solely on merit and with a transparent and innovative method. But their arguments are unconvincing for more than one reason. Let's see why.
Transparency for transparency, it would not have been a bad thing if the decree appointing the president of the Antitrust reported in the Official Gazette in recent days had the motivation for the choice, but not even a shadow of this after the joint press conference of the presidents of the two houses of Parliament on 20 December. But that's not the only shortcoming that catches the eye. Since Fico and Casellati have urged all those interested in the presidency of the Antitrust to apply and to send their curricula by e-mail, which totaled 112, it would be interesting to know how and why the choice fell on a magistrate that few know and who was the first to be amazed – as reported by Casellati in the press conference of 20 December – of the appointment that concerns him.
Usually, in cases of this kind we proceed with the comparative method and, with all due respect to Judge Rustichelli, who must be wished every success for the name of the institution he is called to preside over, no doubt there were many other candidates with more antitrust experience and with more professional titles. It would be enough to recall the three candidates who, according to the rumors of the eve, were in pole position for their excellent curricula, namely Marina Tavassi, who is president of the Court of Appeal of Milan, Alessandro Pajno, former secretary general of the Presidency of the Council and now president of the Council of State, e Albert Pera, former secretary general of the Antitrust in the years of the birth of the Competition Authority.
But there is another point that Fico and Casellati seem to have underestimated and that is article 10, paragraph 2, of the law establishing the Antitrust n. 287/1998, which expressly provides that the chairman of the Antitrust must be chosen from among independent people who have carried out "institutional positions of great responsibility and importance". Rustichelli, who was born in 1961 in Faenza and entered the judiciary in 1992, is currently President of the board of the Business Court in Naples and, among the institutional experiences indicated in his curriculum vitae, include the position of deputy head of cabinet at the Ministry of Productive Activities and that of Legal Adviser to the Presidency of the Council. With all due personal respect to the new chairman of the Antitrust, that his were "institutional positions of great responsibility and importance" is discussed in doctrine. Especially if you look at his predecessors, but also at other of the 112 candidates for the new Antitrust presidency.
