Organizations cannot be effectively brought to justice for their acts or omissions until the law acknowledges that fault lies as much with corporate culture as it does with individual responsibility. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
The essay requires consideration of the problem of how the law can, and should, make a company or organization which is made up of its members, shareholders, managers and so on, civilly and criminally liable for its acts or omissions. It further requires consideration of the extent to which (if any) the effect of corporate culture on the acts or omissions of individuals working within or on behalf of companies and how this can be addressed by the law.
If a company is not held to be legally responsible, then the victims of those acts or omissions cannot be adequately compensated either monetarily and/or by seeing that justice is done through the punishment of the company or someone whose acting on its behalf. Since the law usually deals with corporeal, rather than abstract, bodies it is faced with the problem of attributing responsibility in almost a contrived manner.
The essay should consider how successfully the law does this in terms of the victims?, the company? and it’s employees?, and the public interest? It is important to bear in mind that although the question primarily concerns the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act 2007 (UK) or its equivalents in other jurisdictions, there are other provisions in the civil and criminal law which seek to impose responsibility on companies and which could be weighed against this legislation.