By RALPH NADER, writing at CounterPunch
Five Supreme Court Justices–Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy are entrenching, in a whirlwind of judicial dictates, judicial legislating and sheer ideological judgments, a mega-corporate supremacy over the rights and remedies of individuals.
The artificial entity called "the corporation" has no mention in our Constitution whose preamble starts with "We the People," not "We the Corporation."
Taken together the decisions are brazenly over-riding sensible precedents, tearing apart the state common law of torts and blocking class actions, shoving aside jury verdicts, limiting people’s "standing to sue", pre-empting state jurisdictions–anything that serves to centralize power and hand it over to the corporate conquistadores.
Here are some examples. (For more see thecorporatecourt.com). Remember the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound twenty two years ago? It destroyed marine life and the livelihoods of many landowners, fishermen and native Alaskans. Its toxic effects continue to this day.
Well, after years of litigation by Alaskan fishermen, the Supreme Court took the case to review a $5 billion award the trial court had assessed in punitive damages. A 5 to 3 decision lowered the sum to $507.5 million which is less than what Exxon made in interest by delaying the case for twenty years. Moreover, the drunken Exxon captain’s oil tanker calamity raised the price of gasoline at the pump for awhile. Exxon actually made a profit despite its discharge of 50 million gallons.
The unelected, life-tenured corporate court was just getting started and every year they tighten the noose of corporatism around the American people.
In Bush v. Gore (5-4 decision), the Court picked the more corporate president of the United States in 2000, leaving constitutional scholars thunderstruck at this breathtaking seizure of the electoral process, stopping the Florida Supreme Court’s ongoing state-wide recount. The five Republican Justices behaved as political hacks conducting a judicial coup d’état.
But then what do you expect from justices like Thomas and Scalia who participate in a Koch brothers’ political retreat or engage in extrajudicial activities that shake the public confidence in the highest court of the land.
Last year came the Citizens United v. FEC case where the Republican majority went out of its way to decide a question that the parties to the appeal never asked. In a predatory "frolic and detour," the 5 justices declared that corporations (including foreign companies) no longer have to obey the prohibitory federal law and their own court’s precedents.
Corporations like Pfizer, Aetna, Chevron, GM, Citigroup, Monsanto can spend unlimited funds (without asking their shareholders) in independent expenditures to oppose or support candidates for public office from a local city council election to federal Congressional and Presidential elections.
Once again our judicial dictatorship has spoken for corporate privilege and power overriding the rights of individual voters.
Eighty percent of the American people, reported a Washington Post poll, reject the Court’s view that a business corporation is entitled to the same free speech rights as citizens.
Continue here: Ralph Nader: The Corporate Supreme Court.
