Treating companies with legal rights allows companies to sue and be sued, provides a single entity to facilitate taxation and regulation, simplifies complex transactions that would otherwise affect thousands of people in the case of large companies, and protects the individual rights of shareholders as well as the right to organize. The company is well positioned to foster these healthy ambitions. Incorporation creates the possibility that an institution can outlive its founding members and thus promises inheritance, a kind of worldly immortality. The greatest political ambitions can only be achieved by a few – almost no one can become a senator, governor or president. The legal form of the company, on the other hand, allows the prominence of ordinary individuals. This can be done on a relatively large scale, as with Henry Ford or John Harvard; But it can also happen on a smaller scale, such as when someone starts a local business that lasts generations, or when a local benefactor starts a local library, museum, or hospital. And of course, even those who do not create such businesses, but only work for them or run them, may feel that they are part of the history of an institution that is itself part of the history of the greater community and the nation. The legal recognition of companies is therefore essential for a healthy democratic civil society, because such recognition in a certain sense democratizes the love of celebrity and brings its satisfaction to a limited extent within the reach of the ordinary citizen. A corporation is a separate legal entity from its owners. Businesses enjoy most of the rights and obligations that individuals possess: they can enter into contracts, borrow and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets, and pay taxes. Some call it a “legal entity.” Citizens United did not give any personality to the companies. Companies already had it. As attorney David Gans has documented, despite the fact that the U.S.
Constitution never mentions corporations, the company`s personality has been sneaking into U.S. law for a very long time. The first big leap in corporate personality, from simple property rights to broader rights, was the assertion that the equality clause applies to companies. The laws that govern people take into account our human weaknesses. For example, our prison system is designed to lock up the human body. However, you cannot lock down a company. It is therefore difficult to treat non-human endeavors humanely: it is like breathing life into a superhuman who cannot feel pain and, after releasing him, hope for the best. As early as 800 BC.
India granted legal personality to guild-type śreṇī operating in the public interest. The end of the Roman Republic granted legal personality to parishes, public construction companies that administered public services, and voluntary associations (colleges) such as the early Catholic Church. The different colleges had different rights and duties that were independent of individual members. Some colleges resembled later medieval guilds and were allowed to promote the needs of a trade as a whole, but collegia were otherwise prevented from enriching their members. [2] Under Indian law, corporations, governing bodies, etc. and several other non-human rights have been granted “legal person” status. In lawsuits involving companies, shareholders are not liable for the company`s debts, but the company itself, as a “legal entity”, is required to repay those debts or be sued for non-repayment of debts. Non-human entities that are granted the status of “legal person” by law “have related rights and duties; they can sue and be prosecuted, they can own and transfer property.” Because these non-human entities are “voiceless”, they are legally represented “by guardians and agents” to assert their legal rights and fulfill their legal duties and responsibilities. Specific non-human entities that receive the status of a “legal entity” include “corporate personality, body politics, charity unions, etc.”, as well as trust lands, deities, temples, churches, mosques, hospitals, universities, colleges, banks, railways, communities, and gram panchayats (village councils), rivers, all animals and birds. [4] Yes.
As we have seen, there are good reasons for limited forms of corporate personality. It could be significantly restricted. For example, you could still protect companies from government abuses without allowing them to give unlimited sums for political reasons. However, the restriction and abolition of the body would require a constitutional amendment, which is extremely difficult. A similar study of religious freedom leads to similar results. Again, the First Amendment does not use the word “person” when it provides for freedom of religion. He simply says, “Congress does not enact any laws. Prohibition of the free exercise of religion”.
As in the case of freedom of expression, the simplest reading of this language suggests that freedom is protected regardless of who exercises it, whether natural or artificial. In fact, it would be strange if the law did not extend to corporations, because, as Blackstone of England noted and as was also the case in early America, religious organizations were often founded as societies. In the United States, one of the legal milestones in this debate is: So what is the 14th Amendment again? It was ratified in 1868 and was one of three amendments in the United States.
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