Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s trial accusing China of COVID-19 ended Friday when a federal ruling ruled that his court had no jurisdiction over foreign governments.
US District Judge Stephen Limbaugh, in a 38-page decision, wrote a federal law that sets regulations on when a sovereign foreign entity can be sued in US courts.
“Overall, the court does not yet have an option to dismiss this new claim for lack of jurisdiction,” Limbaugh wrote.
Schmitt’s office filed an appeal after Limbaugh made his decision.
When Schmitt filed a lawsuit, he claimed China was guilty of allowing the novel coronavirus to cause a global pandemic by hiding initial infections in Wuhan.
“The Chinese government has lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of COVID-19, silenced whistleblowers, and done little to prevent the spread of the disease,” Schmitt said in a press release in filing the complaint. be held responsible for their actions. “
It took more than a year for one of the defendants to be notified of the trial and $12,000 to translate the complaint into Chinese.
The trial was the first of its kind in the United States aimed at holding the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party accountable for COVID-19, Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for Schmitt’s office, said in an email to The Independent.
“The office disagrees with the court’s ruling to let China get away with it and temporarily filed an appeal in this case to continue Attorney General Schmitt’s efforts to hold China accountable; we hope to win the appeal,” Nuelle wrote. the fighting continues to make China pay. “
Schmitt, attorney general since 2019, is running as the number one Republican for the U. S. Senate. He presented the trial as an example of his willingness to confront Chinese force if elected.
Shortly after it was filed, legal experts predicted it would fail.
Chimène Keitner, a professor of foreign law at the University of California, Hastings School of Law, told the Washington Post in April 2020 that she “sees some component of this lawsuit thriving under the law, just as it is lately. “
In addition to the Chinese and the Communist Party, the lawsuit named 3 Chinese national agencies, those of Hubei Province and Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“After the complaint was filed, the plaintiff attempted to notify the Hague Convention, but China posted a notice on its online page stating that it rejected the notification under Article Thirteen of the Convention, which allows signatories to refuse a service that would violate sovereignty. “Limbaugh wrote.
The Hague Convention is a foreign agreement that creates a central company in the signatory country to settle for the service of court documents on behalf of its citizens and entities. By rejecting the notification, government agencies are immune from liability, Limbaugh wrote.
The only question left, Limbaugh wrote, is whether Schmitt is right to describe the Communist Party, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences as non-governmental entities.
Schmitt’s complaint alleges that the Communist Party controls everything in China. Although technically a separate legal entity in China, it exercises full and effective control, making it the government, Limbaugh wrote.
Limbaugh indexed the allegations: lack of involvement of the virus in China, falsehood about transmissibility and delay, censorship or retention of critical data and said that “it is not the kind of conduct through which a personal party engages in ‘trade and trafficking or trade’ and is not an advertising activity. “
Schmitt’s argument that the movements of the institute and academia conform to the advertising activity exceptions in the law is not convincing, Limbaugh wrote. The alleged conduct will have to have a “direct effect” on business activity, he wrote.
“The court concluded that the serious misconduct had an immediate result, a ‘direct effect,’ in the United States,” Limbaugh wrote. . “
The Missouri Independent, www. missouriindependent. com, is a nonpartisan, non-profit news organization that covers state government and affects Missourians.