Is Sovereign Immunity A Lame Excuse For Corruption Or Something Worse?
Read more articles on Politics and The Thoughts Of A Writer In New York City and Law and Legal Issues.October 18, 2009
Posted by neillevine
October 18, 2009
Posted by neillevine
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The legal and highly political doctrine of Sovereign Immunity protects elected officials from law suits over damage and harm engendered by their official acts
Unlike private businessmen who not only can be sued but also prosecuted for business decisions that injure workers or cause damage or other problems from business disruptions to serious financial losses, public officials, in the normal course of their everyday activities, do not have to worry that much about causing harm because they have something of an automatic exemption, in theory, to keep on doing their jobs without worrying about law suits or other frivolous legal repercussions .
Two examples that I know pretty well will give you an idea of what is involved and, of course, clarify some things.
During the Viet Nam War, officials working for the government got the idea that clearing underbrush to make it easier to spot enemy fighters and uncover their hiding spots and make it easier to see traffic or whatever would make it so much easier to to detect and deal with enemy combatants. So contracts for a powerful defoliating chemical called Agent Orange were entered into and the areas around well used trails and other heavily forested areas in Viet Nam were sprayed.
Unfortunately, Agent Orange was more potent than the folks ordering it had bargained for. It was a serious carcinogen amongst other medical problems that it caused. The long term end result was that many soldiers got sick. Law suits resulted.
The federal judges hearing the cases were, unfortunately, sworn to allow politicians and the government to do what they viewed were its job so the injury claims were heard but not treated as if the government was largely to blame for the problem and the law suits were mitigated and not treated like most cases would have been treated in the ordinary course of things.
The clean up at Ground Zero was another example. The government was in a rush. The former World Trade Center was a mess, the country thunderstruck and action had to be undertaken. Despite the fact that breathing apparatus was available, such palliative equipment was not regularly used.
So, again, the end result was a lot of sick people. And law suits. And again no apparent end to the legal wrangling nor soothing closure for victims.
That is the nature of the beast.
For a serious case to proceed, it appears true criminal intent would have to be proven, no small hurdle. Like they knew what they were doing was wrong. Yet they went ahead anyway. At Ground Zero, there were high ranking New York City employees who also did not wear protective breathing gear. Just to show you how widespread the risky conduct was.
Likewise, agent Orange was used during a war with the aim of detecting and, therefore, subjecting enemy combatants to effective military action, no small sack of gold.
A lot of politicians, of course, engage in criminal acts and since being a politician is such a good job seek to hide behind any excuse they can get away with. I can cite various examples. The following link is but one:
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/09oct/news020.html
So Sovereign Immunity can be abused. Let me tell you.
Sometimes it takes a very good lawyer or judge or both to tell the difference between a so called public purpose and a more sinister one like holding onto a good job like a political office or self enrichment or any number of other corrupt practices that would be prosecutable and, therefore, not protected by so-called Sovereign Immunity.
Charles Rangel probably would like to claim sovereign immunity for his tax problems. But what government goal did all the mistakes, omissions, oversights and other errors uphold except to save Good Time Charlie money on his IRS filings? Since it appears he has made such serious errors as to warrant further penalties beyond the ten thousand dollars he has already admitted to shorting the government on, it would seem that for the sake of propriety it would be nice if he stood aside until the entire matter is settled. Of course, the way he is playing his support in the House, this matter is likely to go down to the bitter end as I have been suggesting all along.
Probably every skulking politician under the gun and looking for a clever excuse would like to claim Sovereign Immunity, but as prosecutions and elections have clearly proven, they are obviously not entitled to do so.
As the recent flurry of exposures of politicians with their pants around their ankles should demonstrate, we appear to have a lot of elected officials up to no good and there is no way to solve the problem except public disclosure. And hanky panky is not a real official public purpose, so public disclosure would be a recourse that also enlightens and educates and could expose, shame, and embarrass, all at the same time, all for a good cause: voter education. It is also true that since Speaker Pelosi has great influence over all sorts of legislation that she should not be investing her personal fortune in any sort of energy projects, seeking to profit from the outcome. Such actions seems prejudicial, to say the least.
It just seems that claiming Sovereign Immunity for actions that are motivated by greed and ruthlessness and not the public interest would be abuse of the public trust and not a good reason for protecting shameless politicians.
To check out more of my writing, just use one of the following links
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/columnists/000columnists/neillevine/index.html
or
http://www.arscompendium.com/
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