Friday, January 22, 2010

The Latest Supreme Court Ruling, May Protect Corporate Officers From Criminal Prosecution

The US Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion on Thursday that over-turned the way American election campaigns are financed.

The Court has been considering whether to end long-standing limits on corporate and labor union spending in US political campaigns. But the decision has far reaching implications that go beyond campaign financing and include a broad sweeping protection for Corporate officers accused of fraud.

In America, political campaigns are big business, literally - they cost millions of dollars! The 2008 contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain for the White House was the most expensive in US election history, with both candidates raising more than a billion dollars between them, and much of that money was spent on relentless TV ads.

At the heart of the question the Supreme Court considered, should corporations be treated as persons under the US constitution and allowed to spend huge amounts of cash on political campaigns at state, and Federal Congressional and Presidential levels? Their decision, which granted citizenship to corporations, now requires that each of the Constitutional Amendments must be applied to the corporate existence. A potentially devastating blow to prosecutors and the Justice Department

Those in favor argued before the bench that not to include corporations would be a violation of the First Amendment which guarantees free speech. But that free speech has always been a right of the individual, not the corporation which derives its existence through state law!

Those against claimed it would be devastating for American democracy with a flood of corporate sponsored TV ads with big business way outspending individuals.

This intentional error of the Supreme Court will have a lasting impact on the US Constitution and for all Americans. Corporations prior to this ruling enjoyed NO other rights under the Federal Constitution, they had no right of privacy which Americans are entitled to under the Fourth Amendment, and they had no protection against Self incrimination which Americans enjoy under the Fifth Amendment.

Yet the Supreme Court has now leveled the playing field, this error has the propensity to undermine centuries of precedents, it will further cripple criminal cases against corporate officers, because if as the Supreme Court has now determined, “A corporation has the rights of a natural person” then all the rights of citizenship must now be provided to corporations and will effectively shield their officers who commit fraud, and perhaps, as the current investigation is being played out in the Congressional hearings, this was the Supreme Court’s real intent.