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Non-citizens have right to file suits What, in the American legal system, gives standing to non-citizens that enables them to become plaintiffs in our courts? -- Wilson E., Medford Standing is the right to sue based upon a legitimate personal injury, Wilson. It doesn't have anything to do with where you're from. If it did, there would be big trouble. According to Charles Hinckle, a Portland attorney who specializes in constitutional law, citizenship as it relates to standing or your right to sue is not an issue in any court in the world that he knows of. "If I go over to England and somebody there injures me, I can use the English courts to sue them," he said. "That's the way it is anywhere in the world." He says the reason for this is self-evident. "You wouldn't have any Americans doing business in China if you couldn't sue over there, and the same thing here. If America suddenly said foreigners can't sue in American courts, every foreigner would leave the country and all the capital from places like Japan and Europe would dry up. "We would have a world depression." Nowhere in the Constitution is the issue specifically raised, he noted. Meanwhile, the 14th Amendment guarantees due process and equal protection to all "persons," not just citizens. And it's not like the word "citizen" wasn't in use at the time. It's in the Big C in several places. "Clearly if the framers of the 14th Amendment had wanted to limit constitutional rights to `citizens,' they knew how to say so and they would have said so," Hinckle said. "But they didn't. They said, `any person."' (Send your questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; or by fax to (541) 776-4376; or by e-mail to: [email protected] Please include your name, address and phone number for verification.) Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA