Opinion ID: 1433952
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Holy See's First Amendment argument

Text: The Holy See contends that reading the FSIA to allow federal jurisdiction over Doe's claims via the commercial activity exception would violate the First Amendment, because adjudicating the case will require the judicial interpretation of such religious doctrine as the vow of obedience that members of the clergy offer to the Pope. This contention cannot get off the ground because, as a foreign sovereign, the Holy See has no rights under the First Amendment. [6] Neither we nor the Supreme Court have previously addressed whether foreign sovereigns enjoy the benefit of any rights under the Constitution of the United States. Cf. Weltover, 504 U.S. at 619, 112 S.Ct. 2160 (leaving open the question whether foreign states enjoy rights under the due process clause). The D.C. Circuit, however, has concluded that foreign sovereigns are not entitled to rights under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and much of its reasoning on that question is relevant here. See Price v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 294 F.3d 82, 96 (D.C.Cir.2002). The D.C. Circuit explained that foreign sovereign nations are not members of the political community for whose benefit the Bill of Rights was adopted. They are entirely alien to our constitutional system, id., and so the protections to which they are entitled have traditionally been governed not by domestic constitutional law, but by international law. Id. at 97; see also Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 313, 330, 54 S.Ct. 745, 78 L.Ed. 1282 (1934) (foreign sovereigns are outside the structure of the Union.). Unlike private individuals, sovereign states interact with each other through diplomacy and even coercion in ways not affected by constitutional protections. Nat'l Council of Resistance of Iran v. Dep't of State, 251 F.3d 192, 202 (D.C.Cir. 2001). They also have recourse to international dispute-resolution mechanisms to which private individuals have no access. Indeed, the FSIA is in part a recognition that grievances against foreign states are sometimes better resolved in these other arenas, not in U.S. courts. In this context, there seems no basis for extending constitutional protections to foreign states in their capacity as such. Accord O'Bryan v. Holy See, 471 F.Supp.2d 784, 794 (W.D.Ky. 2007) (the Holy See cannot simultaneously seek the protections of the FSIA and the United States Constitution.). In addition, as the D.C. Circuit observed in Price, serious practical problems might arise were we to hold that foreign states may cloak themselves in the protections of the Constitution. Price, 294 F.3d at 99. It would be thoroughly anomalous to permit the executive branch to be constrained in its conduct of foreign relations by assertions by foreign sovereigns of entitlement to the protections of the First Amendment. I would therefore reject the Holy See's contention that foreign sovereigns have First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, holding that the district court's exercise of jurisdiction over Doe's claims presents no First Amendment concerns. III. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the district court's judgment, holding that the FSIA's commercial activity exception permits it to exercise jurisdiction over Doe's non-fraud negligence claims.