Introduction
This paper is going to discuss the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases given the violation of the Fifth Amendment act of the United States of America as argued by the two defendants.
Main body
The United States Fifth Amendment act protects the citizens of the United States as it states that no citizen of the country shall be forced to answer for a capital offense without the outcome of the grand jury. Otherwise, this cannot be the case in instances where there is the arising of the naval, land, or the militia in times of actual act of war thus putting the country and the larger public in danger. This act, further states that no person shall be obligated to be a witness against himself or herself in any criminal case. No individual shall be subject to the same offense more than once that can put him at risk of life. In extension, the Fifth Amendment Act stipulates that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without a course of justice being followed. In case the private property is taken for public use then compensation should be awarded to the aggrieved person. (U.S. Constitution: Fifth Amendment 2008).
In the Hirabayashi case against the US government, it is important to note several details about this case. The Japanese provoked the United States into war by attacking the US pearl Harbor, as a consequence the president of the US government at that time, Roosevelt, acted by giving two orders that were immediately passed into law. First, particular parts of the country were declared as military zones thus excluding people of a particular race in this case people of Japanese origin from these areas. Secondly, War Relocation Authority was established that was given the mandate to shift and supervise people from these designated areas. Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi a student at the University of Washington, therefore, moved to challenge the two orders given by the president as unconstitutional. He argued the case on Monday, May 10, 1943, and the ruling on this case was given on Monday, June 21, 1943. (US Supreme Court Media, Oyez 2008). The question in this case, therefore, is if the executive orders from the president discriminated against people of Japanese origin in violation of the Fifth Amendment Act. The court ruled that the orders were given by the president and the implementation of the curfew to be constitutional. The court chose to ignore any sentiments from Hirabiyashi about racial discrimination and dealt only with the issue of curfew violation by the aggrieved person. The constitution guarantees equal and fair treatment of all its citizens, but screening American people of a particular origin from entering particular areas amounts to racial discrimination and unfair treatment.
The Korematsu case against the United States government was held in 1944. It was similar to the Hirabayashi case for he was again challenging the orders to discriminate American Japanese from entering the west coast that was under military occupation. Again the court ruled that the orders from the president were constitutional and that the interests of the wider American public were superior to the individual rights held by Korematsu. Korematsu was convicted for refusing to be supervised and failing to report to the detention center.
Both rulings exclusively chose to restrict their ruling on the basis that the aggrieved parties had violated the curfew law and did not address the thorny issue of racism. The United States is a democratic country and excluding the American Japanese from entering the west coast amounts to racial discrimination of the minority groups. The rights and freedoms of the constitution should be guaranteed to all Americans so long as they are citizens of the country. Furthermore, the majority of Americans are in some way through culture or blood connected to other places of the world. Therefore, ruling that the President’s orders were constitutional was setting a bad future precedent in terms of fair treatment and provision of constitutional rights to the minority groups in the American society.
I a nutshell the two cases were challenging the executive orders that discriminated against American Japanese. The constitutional rights and freedoms should be fairly accorded to all Americans without discrimination.
Reference
Fifth Amendment Rights of persons 2008. Web.
Hirabayashi v. the United States the US, Supreme court media Oyez 2008. Web.
Korematsu v. the United States. 2008. Web.