Today, in light of the scope of activity in which corporations are involved, there is an increasing argument that the concern about human rights is actually rooted in corporations that have been granted constitutional rights in general, and with regard to criminal proceedings in particular (see, for example, Albert Sanchez-Graells and Francisco Marcos, 'Human Rights' Protection for Corporate Antitrust Defendants: Are We Not Going Overboard? (February 2, 2014). University of Leicester Research Paper No. 14-04. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2389715 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2389715 School of Law.
Anna Grear, Redirecting Human Rights: Facing the Challenge of Corporate Legal Humanity (2010), noted (p. 6):
"What we now face is the danger to human rights futures presented by the genesis of a corporation-friendly human rights legal sensibility"
Ofer Sitbon, in his article: "On Persons, Corporations and Everything in Between Should the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty Apply to Corporations", Kiryat HaMishpat 8, 107, 120 (2009, hereinafter: Sitbon Corporations), also points out the concern about granting constitutional rights to corporations, especially rights deriving from the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, In an era in which the fear of infringement of people's constitutional rights stems largely from corporations.
Aharon Barak, in his book: Human Dignity – The Constitutional Right and its Daughters 863 (2014, hereinafter: Barak, The Constitutional Right), discusses, in chapter 30, entitled "The Daughter's Right to a Fair Trial", the question of whether it is appropriate to include the right to a fair trial in the framework of rights by virtue of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. According to him, when it comes to liberty, the right to a fair trial in criminal law is included in the right to liberty. However, in such a case, the right will not apply to a corporation whose freedom is not threatened even in the framework of a criminal proceeding. It is easier to derive the right to a fair trial from the right to dignity, and this approach has been adopted in the literature and case law (at p. 869 there is a review of the literature and case law on this matter). However, even if we go down this path, the right as a constitutional right will not apply to a corporation. Prof. Barak noted this at p. 878 when he noted that "the right [to a fair trial] does not exist for a corporation," referring to the constitutional right derived from human dignity.