CORPORATE CRIMINAL LIABILITY (original) (raw)

"A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly or as incidental to its very existence.” The difficulty in corporate criminal liability couldn’t be better curtly mirrored by the above sentiments. Corporate criminal liability elicits a number of difficulties, and the question as to when and whether a corporate can be charged for its atrocities is a moot. Nonetheless, law is always a product of the social, economic and political milieu and accordingly, it is in the public interest that corporates be held accountable for their actions. Umpteen times, corporates have committed transgressions that offend the plainest dictates of human living. The Bhopal Gas leaks in India, the Enron scandal in the US, the Goldenberg scandal in Kenya and more recently, the Chase Bank cause celebre are just a morsel of the myriad of cases of corporate crime. In spite of a huge journal of events, corporate crime remains a terra incognita in Kenya and beyond. The dearth of knowledge in this area of law is not helped by archaic statutes that have outlived their generation, and are inapplicable to the current socioeconomic landscape. This paper will attempt to unmuddy the murky waters in this area of law by propounding that corporates can be held criminally liable. In the same breath, we will exhort suggestions that would ensure the charging of corporates yields to fruition.

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