- 2. Certain Charters to Be Subject to the Constitution
Private corporations which have accepted or accept the Constitution of this Commonwealth or the benefits of any law passed by the General Assembly after 1873 governing the affairs of corporations shall hold their charters subject to the provisions of the Constitution of this Commonwealth.
- 3. Revocation, Amendment, and Repeal of Charters and Corporation Law
All charters of private corporations and all present and future common or statutory law with respect to the formation or regulation of private corporations or prescribing powers, rights, duties or liabilities or private corporations or their officers, directors or shareholders may be revoked, amended or repealed.
Thus, the constitution vests in business entities no special rights that the laws of this Commonwealth cannot extinguish. In sum, Defendants cannot assert the protections of Article I, - 1, because they are not mentioned in its text."
In a footnote, O'Dell-Seneca added,
--unlike the Constitution of the United States wherein the word "corporation(s)' never appears, the framers of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wrote that word 23 times. All such uses limit corporations; none grants them rights."
Elsewhere in her Opinion and Order, the judge quoted a 1687 document by William Penn, holder of the royal charter that founded the state, in which Penn examined notions of liberty addressed in England's Magna Charta. O'Dell-Seneca noted that, "...nothing in his writings on liberty suggests that Penn thought that those rights inured to businesses."
Gradually, beginning in the late 1800's, the U.S. Supreme Court helped corporations usurp all manner of "Bill of Rights" protections that were initially intended only for living, breathing humans, such as free speech and equal protection.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
