The Corporation

Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where the line should be drawn?

To the answer this question I asked my self what are the legal rights of a person and here are some rights: (United Nations, 1995)

• the right to legal recourse when their rights have been violated, even if the violator was acting in an official capacity
• The right to life
• the right to liberty and freedom of movement
• the right to equality before the law
• the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty
• the right to appeal a conviction
• the right to be recognized as a person before the law
• the right to privacy and protection of that privacy by law
• freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
• freedom of opinion and expression
• freedom of assembly and association
• self-determination
• wages sufficient to support a minimum standard of living
• equal pay for equal work
• equal opportunity for advancement
• Freedom to form trade unions
• strike
• paid or otherwise compensated maternity leave
• free primary education, and accessible education at all levels
• copyright, patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property

If we see all the rights mentioned, from a legal position, corporations can do many of the same things that natural persons do--buy and sell property, hire and fire, sue and be sued, and so many rights can be applicable as the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but I DO NOT think that corporations should have the same legal rights as individual. As we have seen in the document corporations have not adapted or penetrated as being a member of a society. Their main goal is to increase their wealth by whatever mean possible, leading to labor exploitation, environment pollution, human health for toxic or bad products etc. They are not the same as individual so they shouldn’t be treated as one, I mean can you imagine a corporation going to jell because it committed a crimes? No because they can’t they use the law and the system as if everything was permitted they just have to pay money if they make a fraud or a crime with no serious consequences. The corporation by itself can’t survive or think it must have the people in order to perform property. Corporations should have some norms and rules such as social responsibilities to ensure that the members of the corporations are not being used and have good working conditions.

Should individuals (directors, employees, shareholders) bear any responsibility for the actions of a corporation, if so, to what degree?

In general is very hard to talk about this topic because I mean so many confusions came into my mind; for the most part I think the corporations is the one that has to bear with the responsibilities for the action because for example if a person for UNE comes to your house to fix the internet connection and they still something you don’t think about that individual being the responsible, we tend to blame the company for the event and we assume that they must take responsibilities. On the other hand when a corporation has been doing something that is illegal and all or most of the members of the corporations know or were involved in taking those decisions, they should have some responsibilities for the actions, because they agreed to do harm to other for getting extra money.