Vatican entitled to foreign immunity, judge rules

[emad]

Vatican entitled to foreign immunity, judge rules
08/10/2005 - 09:12:42

A judge in Kentucky has ruled that the Holy See is a foreign state that enjoys certain immunity protections, in an action by three men who claim the Vatican covered up the sexual abuse of children by priests.

Judge John Heyburn of the US District Court in Louisville rejected the victims’ argument that the Holy See was an international religious organisation and ruled that it was a foreign state subject to provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The 1976 act restricts when foreign states can be sued in American courts, although it provides exceptions, such as when the states engage in commercial or certain harmful activities in the US.

The act also requires that service of a lawsuit follow strict protocols. In this case, it required documents to be translated into Latin and served to the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=158450404&p=y5845yyyx

[emad]

1. Judge Heyburn clearly sees himself above the ruling of the UN

which has consistently decreed that the Vatican has no soverign state status.

The UN gives the Vatican observer status only and has consistently upheld the global view of all of its members that to give any religious orgaisation - regardless of its property ownership or the extent of its following - full sovereign status would open the floodgates to organisations such as Scientology to gain equal footing.