Francesco Cossiga, president of the Italian Republic from 1985 to 1992 and current senator for life, died yesterday in Rome at the age of 82. The Italian politician was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Navarra on January 29, 1994, in a ceremony presided over by the then Chancellor , Bishop Alvaro del Portillo.

He was joined by Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, director of the Vienna and Berlin Symphonies; Robert Spaemann, Full Professor of Philosophy in Munich; Manuel Elices, Full Professor and researcher in Materials; Leo Scheffczyk, theologian in Tübingen and Munich; Jorge Carreras, former Dean of Law in Pamplona; and Tadeus Styczen, director of the Scientific committee at the Catholic University of Lublin.

Francesco Cossiga dedicated a large part of his professional life to the study and teaching of Constitutional Law at the University of Sassari, the city where he also began his political life. After a period as a national deputy, he was appointed Undersecretary of Defense and later Minister of the Interior, a position from which he resigned after the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978. In 1983 he was elected President of the Senate of the Republic and in 1985, President of the Republic. His presidency was characterized by appeals to politicians and parliamentarians to achieve institutional reform, and attention to the problem of justice and its ordering.

Francesco Cossiga was awarded an honorary doctorate in law "for his contribution to legal science as a university professor and for his contributions to law as a protagonist and agent subject of the Italian legal system".