Monday, December 10, 2007
POLITICAL JUSTICE
Political freedoms and guarantees were hard-won. It took centuries.
Governments have come a long way since the days when the king’s rule was absolute. Louis XIV of France, a defender of the divine right of kings to rule, is known for the statement: “I am the State.” Therefore, any stubborn act or speech against the king was a treasonous or seditious crime against the government.
When King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta in 1215, the nobility in England won rights in government. King Charles I in 1621 (before his beheading) ceded the parliament certain exemptions from civil prosecutions, and in 1641 Cromwell granted parliament was habeas corpus rights.
Such exemptions later spread to Canada and in common law to the far reaches of the world. These parliamentary privileges exempt them from civil actions or seizure of their persons from forty days before until forty days after a session.
Our country has a form of immunity for Congress from civil actions and habeas corpus rights during sessions. No modern western legislative body has exemptions from criminal prosecution, although some do require that such action be cleared with the presiding officer of the body.
The reason for such rights is the prevention of personal or political intimidation of officials through the abuse of the justice system.
And this is what all the fuss is about in the termination actions initiated in the White House against their own U.S. Attorneys who would not follow their policy of political dirty work.
Certain of those went about their work in an unbiased manner, refusing to file weak or unfounded charges against democrat candidates during the period leading up to recent elections. Some pursued corrupt republican congressmen, and successfully prosecuted them.
These uncooperative federal district attorneys were said not be among the party faithful any longer, and they were terminated. Those who filed charges with little or no basis, and those who went after opposition party candidates and major supporters were found in good favor.
It is not that the president does not have the right to hire and fire U.S. district attorneys. He does not even have to have to state a reason for doing so, although those fired were said to have poor performance records, in contradiction of other information.
However, when it became evident that such firings were the result of an effort to use the justice system for political purposes, then all this becomes not only bad government but contrary to the laws on obstruction of justice.
Congress has an obligation to expose any such conduct and to pursue corrective measures.
It is unfortunate that we have seen such manipulative use of the legal system many times before – even in Oklahoma. Almost every time it has involved politics or money. News media have sometimes been complicit, or perhaps unwitting allies, in such actions. Continued legal persecution of the elderly, ill, and mentally incompetent Senator Stipe comes to mind.
How often have we seen gross errors and corrupt acts given the wink by justice officials and let pass? Yet similarly we have seen efforts to entrap another political or public figure in a legal morass because of some minor error or the appearance of an indiscretion.
Just as a selfish and cruel king kept power by levying false charges against his enemies in the days of old, so will a corrupt government today use the long arm of its law enforcers and its courts to intimidate its adversaries.
Lasting democracies are those which are vigilant in keeping liberties of citizens protected and their system of justice pure.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Governments have come a long way since the days when the king’s rule was absolute. Louis XIV of France, a defender of the divine right of kings to rule, is known for the statement: “I am the State.” Therefore, any stubborn act or speech against the king was a treasonous or seditious crime against the government.
When King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta in 1215, the nobility in England won rights in government. King Charles I in 1621 (before his beheading) ceded the parliament certain exemptions from civil prosecutions, and in 1641 Cromwell granted parliament was habeas corpus rights.
Such exemptions later spread to Canada and in common law to the far reaches of the world. These parliamentary privileges exempt them from civil actions or seizure of their persons from forty days before until forty days after a session.
Our country has a form of immunity for Congress from civil actions and habeas corpus rights during sessions. No modern western legislative body has exemptions from criminal prosecution, although some do require that such action be cleared with the presiding officer of the body.
The reason for such rights is the prevention of personal or political intimidation of officials through the abuse of the justice system.
And this is what all the fuss is about in the termination actions initiated in the White House against their own U.S. Attorneys who would not follow their policy of political dirty work.
Certain of those went about their work in an unbiased manner, refusing to file weak or unfounded charges against democrat candidates during the period leading up to recent elections. Some pursued corrupt republican congressmen, and successfully prosecuted them.
These uncooperative federal district attorneys were said not be among the party faithful any longer, and they were terminated. Those who filed charges with little or no basis, and those who went after opposition party candidates and major supporters were found in good favor.
It is not that the president does not have the right to hire and fire U.S. district attorneys. He does not even have to have to state a reason for doing so, although those fired were said to have poor performance records, in contradiction of other information.
However, when it became evident that such firings were the result of an effort to use the justice system for political purposes, then all this becomes not only bad government but contrary to the laws on obstruction of justice.
Congress has an obligation to expose any such conduct and to pursue corrective measures.
It is unfortunate that we have seen such manipulative use of the legal system many times before – even in Oklahoma. Almost every time it has involved politics or money. News media have sometimes been complicit, or perhaps unwitting allies, in such actions. Continued legal persecution of the elderly, ill, and mentally incompetent Senator Stipe comes to mind.
How often have we seen gross errors and corrupt acts given the wink by justice officials and let pass? Yet similarly we have seen efforts to entrap another political or public figure in a legal morass because of some minor error or the appearance of an indiscretion.
Just as a selfish and cruel king kept power by levying false charges against his enemies in the days of old, so will a corrupt government today use the long arm of its law enforcers and its courts to intimidate its adversaries.
Lasting democracies are those which are vigilant in keeping liberties of citizens protected and their system of justice pure.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
